My Zanpakuto Will Pierce the Heavens!
by Ka Hasuken
Summary: Kamina died. Incredibly sad, I know. However, what if his spirit was reborn in the Soul Society? Prepare your bodies for the clash between the manly and the plot-less when the Seireitei sweeps our Gurren Brigadier into its world and its perils!
1. My Name is Kamina! Who the Hell're You?

**A/N: Heeeeey, boys and girls! Ka Hasuken here, writing more stuff even though I should be doing homework. Yay procrastination! Plenty of time to sleep when you're dead! Anyway, this is my second fan-fic to date and it's the spawn of my twisted mind and the brilliance of two awesome anime/manga writers and their staff: take two of my favorite animes and all that goes with them, the manliest, most inspirational fictional character in the universe, the most insanely bad-assical fictional evil villain in the universe, and throw in a custom plot made by yours truly and you get KAMINA'S ADVENTURES AS A SOUL REAPER (aka "My Zanpakuto Will Pierce the Heavens!"). I hope you enjoy.**

'**Tis a shame, but I don't own either Bleach or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.**

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**CHAPTER ONE**: My Name is Kamina! Who the Hell Are You?!

"Oi!"

The ruckus was coming from a heavily populated sector of the Rukon District… again. He was beginning to wonder why he took himself up on the offer to become a more permanent participant in the workings of the Soul Society; particularly the Thirteen Court Guard Squads.

"Damn, how long have I been out? This doesn't look like the surface to me."

This place was always known for breeding trouble. Even so, being sent here so frequently had grown to be a great annoyance. More so was the fact that Ichigo positively _hated_ being reduced to somewhat of an errand boy.

"Hey, hey, hey, get your hands off me! I'm not doing anything wrong."

He was at least a Captain-class Soul Reaper, yet when peaceful times came around, all of the Soul Society brass seemingly lost respect for him. He heard a punch landing squarely. The sound of wood breaking accompanied a cloud of dust that rose in the distance. Well, at least this guy should make for an interesting day. Sadly enough, that's all Ichigo could hope for at this point. Sure, Aizen was still at large, but the Soul Society did not seem like it was ready to make a move any time soon. So for now… it was Substitute Soul Reaper Errand Boy. Ichigo sighed in discontent.

"Who the hell do you think I am?!"

"_Took the words right out of my mouth_… _wait—what the_?"

Ichigo's final flash step perched him up on the top of a somewhat large tavern overlooking the situation at hand. There was a crowd of people surrounding a single, apparently aggravated person. But the person in the middle… it couldn't be, right?

"A **Zanpakutou**?"

The man was shirtless, something rather strange to encounter in a lot of places—but even more so here in the peasantry sectors of the Soul Society. He stuck out like an extremely sore thumb. Compared to the plainly dressed spirit folk in their traditional clothing, he brandished his blue swirling tattoos proudly. They flagrantly accented his arms and back, a back by the way, that was covered by a tattered and flowing crimson cape with an orange flame pattern at its bottom. In the center laid a black flame insignia shaped like a skull. This skull appeared to be wearing a white version of the extremely gaudy pointed triangle orange sunglasses that adorned the man's face. His black pants held up haphazardly by a wide, white belt flowed a bit in the wind; as did his blue hair.

And as if _any_ of that was not enough to catch anyone's eye, he lazily carried over his shoulder an occupied sword sheath. A thin rope was attached on both ends of it, tethering it to the man's torso. Ichigo let slip some of his spiritual pressure to announce his arrival. The peasants grew worried under the ghostly strain and began to flee. The man seemed to grin a little as he adjusted his glasses and gazed up at the obvious source of the power. Unlike the commoners running away from his place, half of his innate "fight or flight" defense mechanism was permanently broken.

"Oi, you there," the man flicked his sheath forwards and pointed at his new acquaintance, "you look important. Mind telling me what's going on here?"

Ichigo looked puzzled, "_Who is this guy_? _It's like he just got here or something_." He shook his uncertainties away for the moment. "I know quite a few Soul Reapers who dress like weirdos, but seriously man."

Ichigo's initial look of confusion and the man's grin traded faces. "Soul Reaper?" he asked. "'The heck is that?"

"You mean you're _not _a Soul Reaper?"

"How can I be something that I've never heard of before?" The man looked a little annoyed at this point.

"Well, in that case, I guess I've got no other choice but to take you in for questioning."

"Whoa, whoa, questioning?" the man suddenly grew defensive. Ichigo knew that he wouldn't go quietly. "What did I do wrong?"

"For starters, you just punched a guy into a house a minute ago."

"I've seen worse."

Ichigo's eye twitched and he sighed again," Look, it seems you're not getting the point. You're causing problems and I've been sent to take you in."

"Somebody sent you?" The man flung his sheath's tip into the ground and leaned on it. "Pssh," he flung his hair into the wind. The sun glinted off of his neon orange glasses. With an elegant motion he adjusted them and looked back up at his would-be captor, "Who the hell do you think I am?! **Ore no** **na wa Kamina-sama no Dai-Gurren-Dan**! I won't be taking orders from someone of the likes of you! "He thrust his finger in the Soul Reaper's direction, "In fact, maybe I should get you to take me to your leader. I wanna ask them what's going on."

Needless to say, Ichigo was not too fond of his charge's attitude. He drooped his head, the shadow covering his angry eyes. "_This guy _had_ to've just died_. _He doesn't know anything about the Soul Society. Even so, he's pissing me off more than Ganju_."

Through a twitchy smile made of gritted teeth, he managed out, "I'm going to let that slip if you just come along quietly—,"

"Oi! Take me to the guy in charge! I wanna know what this place is!" Kamina's finger refused to change its target.

"_God, it's like this guy wasn't even listening_. _If I find the Soul Reaper who sent this guy to the Soul Society, I'm going to punch him in the face so hard he'll think twice before letting a _saint_ in here_." Ichigo smiled a little, "_Oh well, I tried being nice_."

Ichigo flash stepped into striking range only to find his punch directed to the face dodged swiftly by his new poorly-made acquaintance. The Soul Reaper, though surprised, followed up effortlessly with a roundhouse kick to Kamina's head. The shirtless renegade jumped; hurtling his attacker's leg with a back flip and landing a few feet away. Ichigo stood up straight and looked firmly at Kamina.

"Who are you, exactly?"

"I already told you!" said Kamina, annoyed at the question. "I'm the great Lord Kamina! Leader of the Great Gurren Brigade!" He slammed a thumbs-up into his chest.

Seeing that the man in front of him completely missed the deeper point of his question, Ichigo brushed it off angrily and set to capturing his opponent. "It doesn't matter who you are," Ichigo said calmly as the wrappings around his sword slowly slipped off. "You're a criminal as far as I can see and you're not going to go in without a fight." He assumed a lax fighter's stance and brandished a gleaming **Zangetsu** in the mid-day sun.

"Ooooh," Kamina adjusted his glasses in honest interest, "Nice sword! Wanna trade?"

This question knocked Ichigo off balance for a moment, "Trade?! You idiot, that's not how it works! Why the hell do you even have a Zanpakuto if you know nothing about them?"

"Zanpaku—," Kamina scratched his head with his own sword's sheath before looking at it and realizing what his attacker was actually talking about, "My sword? Hah, this isn't really even mine!" Kamina grinned widely while Ichigo's eyes displayed a look of mild shock. "This is the old man's from the village. But I think I make much better use of it."

"_Not even… from the village_? _Is he talking about something from his lifetime_? _But he's here with it_… that_ doesn't make any sense_. _Who the hell is this guy_?" Ichigo resumed his stance, now a little worried about exactly who he was fighting. Not about to take this incident lightly, he flash stepped at full speed towards his opponent who had not even taken a stance of his own.

"_I don't know anything about this guy, but he's definitely more powerful than he looks_. _Not being from around here, he could even be another person trying to take over Soul Society… but he doesn't seem… smart enough to do that._" Ichigo swung his blade as quickly as he could. Kamina raised his sword sheath in defense but was knocked back, off his feet due to the immensity of Zangetsu. "_Now_!" Ichigo's eyes widened, sensing an opening to attack. He rushed forward again as Kamina was still airborne.

However, much to Ichigo's surprise and dismay, the disabling blow he was delivering was blocked. Kamina had managed to flip rapidly and land one hand on the ground. He threw his other hand up, gripping his sheathed sword and miraculously parried Zangestu. Kamina pushed off of his hand and landed back away from Ichigo, but this time with the intent to counterattack. The gloves were coming off… and by that, Kamina flung his rather bulky cape to the side. He stood up straight and the sun shot off his glasses again.

The Gurren Brigade leader grinned, "Get ready, punk. Time to show me what you've got! At least I'll get a workout before getting down to business here."

The orange haired Soul Reaper furrowed his brows, but they soon shot up in surprise as he saw Kamina rushing him at a much pace faster than he had expected. The tattooed attacker leapt into the air and drew his sword. He swung at Ichigo who blocked the attack with his Zanpakuto. However, he was unable to do anything as Kamina kept up the assault. He swung his sword's sheath as a secondary attack. As soon as Ichigo felt the hit, he lowered his sword to begin his own counterattack… only to be greeted by a roundhouse kick given by a still airborne Kamina. Ichigo took the kick straight to the side of his face and flew into the wooden house to his left. Kamina spun around and landed lightly on his feet.

"What the hell…?" Ichigo scolded himself as he got up and dusted himself off; removing a piece of broken wood that had balanced itself upon his head.

"Tch," was all Kamina could say at the moment. He smirked at the Soul Reaper before him.

Ichigo did not take kindly to that. He flash stepped again… and again… and again. Kamina actually looked worried for the first time since the encounter. Ichigo was blurring in and out of his vision repeatedly. Up on the roof, now two feet away, it looks like he could destroy him at any time. Was that just him sticking his tongue out?

Kamina calmed down and assumed a defensive stance with this sword reminiscent of Kendo. "So… who are you?" he asked hoping one of the blurs would answer.

"My name is," suddenly a blow came from seemingly nowhere. Kamina's stance was utterly broken. "ICHIGO!" The sharp kick to his shoulder brought Kamina keeling over. "KUROSAKI!" Flash stepping once more before his opponent, Ichigo high kicked Kamina in the chin before he hit the ground, sending him straight up into the sky. Not even close to being finished, Ichigo pursued his flying target and caught up to him nearly a hundred feet from the ground. The Soul Reaper gripped Kamina by his neck and held him suspended while Ichigo himself floated effortlessly in the air.

"Ha… haha—HAHAHA!" this laughter was not the reaction that the orange haired Soul Reaper was originally hoping for when he delivered his mighty kick to Kamina's jaw. "Strawbe—haha—Strawberry! Your name is Strawberry!" Despite the nearly broken jaw and trickle of blood coming from his mouth, the leader of the Gurren Brigade seemed completely content with his situation.

"Shut up about that! It means 'Guardian Angel!'" a slight blush had crept onto Ichigo's angry face.

"Oi! Whoa, whoa! And how are you flying?!" Kamina tilted his head around and was truly surprised at how his opponent was holding him.

"I don't have to explain that to yo—,"

"Let me try it!"

"Wha—wait a minute!"

It was too late, as Kamina had already freed himself from Ichigo's grip. About to yell and chase after his charge, our orange haired hero was completely astounded at what he saw. Not twenty feet below him, he had done it—Kamina was floating in the air.

"_I-Impossible_! _It takes a huge amount of innate spiritual energy for someone to spill it out and maintain it to the point where they can float and move around like that_!" Ichigo looked on in awe as Kamina did flips and dashed around, laughing and shouting happily.

"How did you—?"

"A man always acts first and asks questions later! You don't know if you can unless you try!" The brigade leader looked rather proud of himself judging by the grin that was plastered across his face at the moment.

Before Ichigo could ask any more questions—most probably regarding the sanity of his opponent—Kamina had already retrieved his blade and was rushing upwards towards him. Ichigo smirked a little, almost to his own surprise, "_Well, I was right_. _This guy sure did make my day interesting_." "Alright then, you crazy bastard! LET'S GO!!" Ichigo rushed to meet Kamina halfway. Their blades collided releasing an intense wave of spiritual pressure. The Captains, Lieutenants, and much of the **Seireitei** all immediately took notice at the potentially deadly but almost playful battle. However, soon something much more sinister was stealing away their attention.

Ichigo and Kamina continued to clash swords in mid air, rushing past each other, and looping back around to repeat the process again. It seemed as if neither had the upper hand, and almost as if both of them knew this and neither of them cared. This continued for a minute or two until a voice shattered the relative monotony.

"**Bakudou** Number 61: **Rikujokoro**."

Suddenly, six golden planks of light surrounded Kamina and thrust into him. He immediately released his sword out of shock, letting it drop the hundred or so feet to land blade-first in the ground. "Gugh—agh! Why can't I move?!"

"Byakuya," Ichigo stated solemnly.

"Oi, you with the hair piece! Let me outta this!' shouted Kamina, who was actually angry more about having his fight interrupted rather than being immobilized.

"Kurosaki," the Captain of Squad Six began, completely ignoring the furious cries of his prisoner, "we have problems." Byakuya's eyes narrowed sharply.

"But what about this guy?" Ichigo said pointing at a still fuming and struggling Kamina.

"Aizen-sized problems."

To make up for the size lost by Byakuya's eyes narrowing, Ichigo's eyes shot open at the last comment. Having understood, Ichigo turned to his new sparring partner with a smile, "We've gotta go take care of something. You stay here and be good, OK?"

"Don't treat me like some baby, you punk! Hey, hey, what're you doing?!" Byakuya slowly drifted Kamina to the ground into a sitting position next to where his sword had fallen, all while maintining his binding spell. With that, Ichigo and Captain Kuchiki took their leave towards a part of the Seireitei where a large explosion had just occurred. Kamina wondered what had just happened, what was going on, and what would become of him after he felt the explosion rocking the Soul Society while realizing that he was still unable to move.

More questions ran through his mind as the sky itself seemingly opened up before his eyes not too far from his present location. It seemed like there were people in there… people dressed in white clothing and… wielding swords? It seemed as if they had just been dropped off in front of an all you can eat buffet. They simply began wantonly attacking anything they saw. More explosions ripped through Soul Society. Many of them almost looked as if they were getting closer to Kamina.

"Gotta do something!" After a few moments of pained struggling, the shirtless combatant could only say, "The next time I see that scarf-wearing pansy… I'ma kill him." Not a second afterwards, a dust cloud violently shot past him along with many of the nearby houses.

**-----**

**A/N: Whew, longer chapter than I had anticipated. I sincerely hoped you enjoyed it. I'm not sure if anyone's done something like this before, and I'm sorry if it seemed like I copied an idea if that's indeed true. If not, I'd love to keep writing. However, I'ma need some pointers. Even though I have a light plot written down, I'll still kinda be writing this on the fly… so reviews, comments, and suggestions are more than welcome (WOULD BE AWESOME).**

**By the way… just because Kamina doesn't have Gurren Lagann doesn't mean that he won't still be using drills as a weapon. Oh, yes… that's right… the Giga Drill Breaker's comin' back, bitches. :D**

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Time for some Japanese!

**Zanpakuto: **Soul Cutter

**Ore no na wa Kamina-sama no Dai-Gurren-Dan: **My name is Lord Kamina of the Great Crimson Brigade

**Zangetsu: **Moon Cutter

**Seireitei:** Court of Pure Souls

**Bakudou: **Way of Binding

**Rikujokoro: **Prison of the Six-Pointed Light


	2. I Never Abandon Those In Need!

**A/N: Well, here we go again. I really don't think this chapter turned out as well as the first one—at least I don't completely like how it came out. Regardless, I kinda wanted to post up another chappy so maybe I could get closer to get the real story rolling… or something. Well, enough of the babbling, on to the story!**

**I still don't own Bleach or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann…**

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**CHAPTER TWO**: I Never Abandon Those in Need!

Kamina coughed and choked on the dust cloud lazily drifting upwards around him. He was still bound by Captain Kuchiki's technique and now had to deal with the heavy wooden planks on top of him. There still remained some slits from which he could gaze through. Doing so, he was brought face to face with a scene of utter destruction. The whole street had been leveled and much of the surrounding area along with it. In the new dirt clearing, amidst a few collapsed buildings stood three strange looking people wielding swords.

One, a man; very tall, with spiky brown hair and a muscular build, and was standing rather rigidly with his sword gripped tightly in hand. A strange white mask covered half of his face. His other male associate was of average height, average build… he seemed… average. Short, black hair, brown eyes, and he wore a face that conveyed a look of eternal apathy. The woman next to him was about the same height in comparison. Her deep crimson hair flowed in the wind as she gleefully shook the blood from her sword. Each of them wore white vests with black linings over top of a white uniform that would almost befit a Soul Reaper.

"Takara, you're so boring!" the woman loudly complained to the plain one in the middle. "Have some fun! Isn't this great?! This has _gotta_ be the best mission we've ever had!" Her words were accompanied by sweeping expressions from her arms.

"**Hai**, Takara-san!" agreed the burly giant in a deep voice, still standing as if he were called to attention by a drill sergeant. "The mission will be completed with ease at this rate! You must be proud!"

The swordsman in the middle simply shut his eyes and sighed, almost as if he was tired. His was the only sword in its sheath at the moment. Suddenly, a soft rumbling was heard. It appears that someone was not able to escape the blast. A lone man stood up awkwardly; his right arm hung limp as blood trickled down from his shoulder and dripped off of his hand. Kamina immediately concluded that it was broken.

"Oh?" the female warrior tilted her head to the side and gazed at their new company. The man turned around with a fiery look in his eyes and a vicious scowl across his face. "We've got a friend!" she announced with a hint of sadism delicately caressing her words.

"You—," the man's sentence was interrupted by a few bloodied coughs, "what are you here for?" It was easy to see that by the dark demeanor of his tone, he did not care that he was simply a Soul Society commoner facing three elite spiritual warriors from another world.

Before either of his two comrades could speak, the tall one of the group stepped forward, "We are of **Hueco Mundo** and come on an assigned mission."

"**Arrancar** **Numero Cuarenta**," he pointed to himself sternly, "Hobikou Tenko!" His tirade continued.

"**Arrancar** **Numero Treinta y Siete**," the woman's eyes glinted with bloodlust; equally shared in her grin, "Neme Yakkai!"

"**Arrancar Numero Veinticuatro**," the man's head was tilted to the side with a look akin to boredom, "Takara Kidai!"

"But why did you _do_ this?!" the man screamed holding his arm and motioned with his head to the destruction that surrounded him.

"We have our orders," Hobikou responded bluntly.

"Some damn orders!" the peasant said as he rushed the three Arrancar before him.

"And those orders include killing anyone who gets in our way!" Neme noted with a smile.

Suddenly, the man's primary target disappeared from view. "_What the—AUUGH_!" Kamina's eyes shot open. There was no way the man could have reacted in time. The woman had just sped behind him in the blink of an eye and impaled him viciously. She slowly dragged the sword upwards, supporting her prey's body weight on her blade. It was apparent by the man's tormented cries that he was still alive… if only for a moment more.

"_Damn these pillars_!!!" the leader of the Gurren Brigade was furious. These people! Their mission! They were no better than the Beastmen and their damned king! The man's screams continued to violently penetrate the air until something caught everyone's attention.

"DADDY!" a single word brought everyone's heads to bear. From underneath another collapsed house, not much further from where the man emerged, a small girl now stood. Immediately a woman shot up from the debris and held her daughter.

"Amai, no!"

"Am… A-Amai," the man stuttered through a weak smile while blood leaked from his throat. His eyes then shot wide. The sadist in charge of him twisted her blade horizontally and quickly freed her katana with a swift cut that cleaved through half of his torso. There was no life left within him before he even hit the ground.

"Hmm?" Neme slowly walked towards the woman and child; head bobbing from side to side non-chalantly, "trying to protect your family?"

"_Kittan_, _Yoko_… _Simon_!" thoughts about his friends raced furiously through Kamina's mind. "_What would they think I they saw me like this_?!" He cursed that stupid idiot for binding him up so tightly. "_It's just light_!" His muscles bulged under the strain. "_It's only wood_!" His bones creaked under the pressure. "_When have these things ever stopped the man's spirit before_?!"

"He knew he stood no chance," the first words—albethem monotone—in a while from the so-far silent Arrancar of the group drew looks from his counterparts, "if anything, he was probably trying to cover their escape to a safer hiding spot." His face still escaped the grips of emotion.

"D-Daddy…" the little girl mustered in respons despite the hushes of her mother.

"_Daddy_," the word hung in Kamina's mind. His eyes grew wide, "_Father_," suddenly the image of his father leaving him popped into the forefront of his thoughts. "_**Jii-san**_," he could see it again; his father's skeleton, still adorned in the cape and bracelet. He could see himself planting his sword in the impromptu grave in an attempt at prayer. "_JII-SAN_!!!" The fact that he was bound by magic and underneath a house had been totally forgotten.

Neme turned her head back to the remnants of the family, "Well… they're not 'in our way,' but this'll only take a second." She rushed forward with blade drawn back, ready to swing.

**-----**

Byakuya was occupied fending off **Menos Grande** that had been summoned near the Seireitei when a sudden twinge in his thoughts brought him to strike less lightly than he had intended. The wounded Menos began to invoke a **cero** in retaliation, but was cut down before the noble could be attacked.

"Kuchiki!" Kenpatchi shouted lazily after dispatching the mass of evil spiritual energy, "you getting soft on me?"

"Where is Kurosaki?" Byakuya countered with seriousness present in his stare.

"Hell if I know," the noble's imposing counterpart retorted. Captain Kuchiki furrowed his brows in thought. "Oh," Kenpatchi grew interested, "something on your mind?"

"Do you think you can handle it here?" Three more Menos could easily be seen lumbering towards the walls of the Seireitei. Kenpatchi grinned.

"They'll barely keep me awake!" he spat.

**-----**

"What?!"

"I could've sworn that I'd died," the tattooed man's eyes were hidden by his hair and his glasses had fallen off. "I was always told that when you died, you went to a peaceful place." His hand trembled as he gripped his sword, blocking the strike from the Arrancar before him. "But if this…," his hand trembled violently and he gritted his teeth, "if _this _is what I've been sent to then I can't be dead yet!"

The woman stumbled back as Kamina deflected her sword away with a swift sweep of his own. Thrusting his blade straight into the air, letting it glint furiously in the sunlight, he cried, "I am the man who never deserts the weak! The backs of those in the Great Gurren Brigade never grow tired of the oppressed that we carry!"

"What an absurd declaration."

"Who is this freak?"

"…"

"Hey, you, with the stupid!" Neme pointed angrily at the family's strange defender. "Who the hell do you think you're dealing with?!"

"That's not how it's said at all," Kamina said—almost to himself—while scratching his head.

"Are you paying attention to me?!" the female Arrancar yelled again. Almost as if he really had forgotten where he was, Kamina returned his attention to his new opponents and held his sword in front of him.

"Get out of here," he said quietly. The mother and daughter perked up at the man standing with his back to them. Kamina threw his head to the side and glared at them with one eye, "Did you hear me? Get out of here!" The woman nodded quickly before pulling her daughter to her feet and leading her away as quickly as possible.

"What?" Neme asked the pair mockingly, "trying to escape?!" She bolted forward, leaving visibility due to her use of **Sonido**. But Kamina speedily held out a stern arm and Neme came back into view… by colliding with it.

"**Matte**!" he cried as her abdomen impacted his forearm. Neme let out a violent cough. Right after clothes-lining the white-dressed woman, Kamina gripped her by the neck and forcefully hurled her backwards into the ground before him as the woman and daughter scrambled to safety. That pair had been totally forgotten at this point.

"Oi, oi!" he began as his adversary was still coughing; catching her breath from the last attack, "What're you doing?" he thrust his sword into the ground and pointed at the three hollows in front of him, "The Great Kamina, leader of the Gurren Brigade…," he then struck his chest with his fist, "he is your opponent now!"

"Why you…!" Neme growled under her breath as she staggered to her feet. However, it seems that something suddenly pleasant happened as her scowl turned into a smile. Kamina's head tilted to the side in wonder. "Well, guys," she began sinisterly, "it looks like we've got someone _in our way_. Mind if I take this one?" She turned her head back to Takara, who simply waved his hand in what seemed like approval.

Neme grinned viciously, "That last block was a fluke. I'll show you what a mistake challenging me was!" She rushed Kamina with her sword aimed at his neck. Kamina snatched his sword from the earth and firmly countered her attack with his sword and glared into her eyes. Neme grew angrier at this gesture of superiority.

The female Arrancar began shooting around Kamina using Sonido. "I've seen this trick before," he quipped without even looking around, "and you're a lot worse than Ichigo is at it."

"You…!" she stopped her attempt at confounding her opponent in order to strike from directly above him. She bolted down from the air hoping to bisect him from the head down only to have Kamina side-step her. She swung again from the ground but was blocked. "Grrr-ragh, damn you!"

Kamina jumped up a little while still blocking and delivered a powerful kick to Neme's gut. She flew backwards and tumbled along the ground before recovering swiftly. She looked up to find Kamina out of view. "Huh—wha?"

"Neme-san! Behind you!" Hibikou called out.

Neme turned to find the sole of Kamina's foot a mere inch from her face. She was painfully launched back to roughly the same spot where she had been kicked before. She got to her feet and stared daggers at the man who was now slowly approaching her.

"_This Soul Reaper_…," she gritted her teeth in disappointment, "_who would'a thought that some random guy we didn't even sense was there would force me to dip into my released form so quickly_."

"You!" Kamina thrusted his sword at the trio of Arrancar, "if you're an enemy of peace and justice, you're an enemy of the Great Gurren Brigade! It might be that I'm the only one to represent the Gurren Brigade here, but I'll still show you our might! Our strength comes from our determination! I will one day grasp the heavens themselves! You can't stop me!"

Hobikou thought for a moment, "Perhaps this man is of the clan of wild warriors who smoke hallucinogens prior to going into battle," he said to no one in particular.

"Can't stop you, huh?" Neme said quietly, almost sadly, "I'll show you!!!" She assumed a sturdy stance and bit into the hilt of her sword with her hands. "**Traiga el abrazo más frío**… **Anochecido**—AAAGH!" Suddenly, two jets of blood shot from Neme's spine. Her Zanpakuto, once glowing, ceased to do so and dropped out of her hand unceremoniously to the ground.

"NEME-SAN!" Hobikou cried. Even Takara's eyes shot open at what had just transpired. The slain Arrancar dropped to her knees and slowly proceeded to collapse completely to the ground, blood continuing to pool around her body.

"Y-you!" Kamina said in mild shock.

"Captain Kuchiki of Squad Six," Takara warily named the intruder; the one responsible for his comrade's recent demise. Said Soul Reaper stood next to the body and calmly shook the blood from his sword before looking up at the remaining two enemies of the Soul Society.

**-----**

**A/N: So there ya have it. As said before, I didn't like this one as much… but that's just me. Reviews, suggestions, and criticism are extremely welcome. I better get to bed. I've got class in six hours. =.=**

**-----**

Yay for Foreign Words!

**Hai:** Yes.

**Hueco Mundo: **Hollow World

**Arrancar: **A Spanish verb meaning "to tear or rip off forcefully"

**Cuarenta: **Forty

**Treinta y Siete: **Thirty-seven

**Veinticuatro: **Twenty-four

**Jii-san: **Old man

**Menos Grande: **Less Big

**Cero: **Zero

**Sonido: **Sound

**Matte: **Wait a second!

**Traiga el abrazo más frío... Anochecido: **Bring the coldest embrace… Nightfallen One


	3. He Gives Me a Purpose!

**A/N: I poke you with another chapter. Enjoy.**

**I dun own teh aneemay of ossim Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann nor the other anime in this story which is still cool but still not quite as manly-win-GAR-epic as TTGL, Bleach.**

**-----**

**CHAPTER THREE: **He Gives Me a Purpose!

"Captain Kuchiki?!" Hobikou looked back at his ally in apprehension, "but I thought we were told that the captains would be taken care of!"

Byakuya Kuchiki merely looked up at the two Arrancar before him with a still relatively stunned Kamina to his back. "What is your mission here?" Takara remained silent. Hobikou's body twitched in what appeared to be restrained fury. "I ask you again," the noble repeated sternly, "what is your mission here. Do not doubt that I cannot cut you down in an instant."

"Our mission…?" the gargantuan began softly. "Our mission…," suddenly his sword began glowing and the air around him grew denser. "Our mission…!" the ground around him broke to pieces and was scattered about as a piercing white light cut through the clearing. "Our mission is to follow the mandate of Aizen-sama!" he again glanced at his fallen ally ever so briefly, "No matter the cost!"

"**Pase por el viento**! **Relámpago**!" bolts of white light shot from the ground. The invoker's uniform became bound so tightly around him that it looked like a white speed suit of sorts with black lines jutting down from his neck across his body, towards the extremities, representative of lightning. His sword was no longer present. The small remnant of a mask grew across his face, leaving only his eyes, noes, and mouth exposed. It now resembled a white, skull-like helm with knife-like protrusions that extended from his cheeks down past his chin. He crouched and then jumped into the air with blinding speed.

"**KURAAEEE**!" he shouted as he changed course at a ninety degree angle and shot straight for Byakuya. Lightning appeared to shoot up from the ground and wrap around his body. The deadly light danced around his arms and shot past his extended right hand.

"**Hado **4: **Byakurai**," the Kuchiki held out his finger and a bolt of blue lightning shot forth to counter the force of the Arrancar. The two forces met equally and nullified each other. Hobikou gasped seeing his attack dissipate before him before noticing the presence behind him. "I will not ask again. Why were you sent here?" Byakuya, despite his normal demeanor never leaving him was apprehensive as to what might come. He felt as if he was losing time.

"_This guy_…," Kamina was looking up, seeing the strange man almost toying with this giant.

"Hm?" Captain Kuchiki's attention turned behind him. The other Arrancar was now positioned to deliver a deadly strike with his sword.

"I'd advise against attacking my comrade further, Captain," Takara said coldly.

"**Getsuga Tenshou**!" suddenly, an arch of blue energy was seen hurdling towards the three floating in mid-air. Instantly, the bodies vanished before the wave could crash into any of them.

Byakuya reappeared next to Ichigo, "As reckless as ever," he said flatly.

"Sorry I'm late, Byakuya," the orange haired Soul Reaper apologized half-heartedly. "Got a little caught up with some Menos back there. So what's going on?"

"I called you back because I felt my Rikujokoro break," Ichigo looked over in surprise. "However, I'm not sure if I actually need your assistance anymore." The now somewhat angered substitute reaper was about to say something before the captain cut him off, "That man," he gestured to Kamina, still standing still with sword in hand, "who is he?"

"Eh, I don't even know," Ichigo answered. "I think he's a new soul. I found him making trouble around here not an hour ago."

"Take charge of him," Ichigo glanced at his superior questioningly, "Get him away from here, make sure nothing happens to him. I can imagine that Yamamoto-Genryusai will want to have a word with him after this." Ichigo paused for a second, but nodded and flash stepped away before Byakuya continued the conversation with himself, "Even I am a rather interested in this matter."

"I'll teach you to ignore me!" the fortieth Arrancar shouted as he charged once again with both hands glowing in power.

**-----**

An explosion was heard behind him, but Ichigo knew better than to worry about Byakuya's safety. Instead, he continued rushing towards his target. Kamina saw his former opponent approaching at extreme speeds and got back into a defensive stance, "Whoa, whoa, hold on there, buddy!" but his thoughts were cut off when Ichigo knocked away his blade with one hand, spun around, and grabbed him before launching back into the air with a flash step. "OI! LET GO OF ME! I'm not going to just let you manhandle the leader of the Grea—!"

"Gah, shut up, you're worse than Kon!"

"And just who the hell is that?!"

"I told you to shut up, you idio—!" Ichigo was barely able to dodge the sword attack aimed at his head.

"Where are you going?" the forgettable Arrancar asked the pair. Ichigo scowled and probably would have cared more that Kamina managed to free himself from his grasp if he was not being held up by an elite warrior of Aizen's army.

"I go where I am needed!" the shirtless wannabe Soul Reaper proclaimed. Ichigo merely looked annoyed while Takara's expression remained unchanged. "And here definitely doesn't fit that description." Kamina began to walk away on the air when Takara shot in front of him. The insurgent leader barely had time to duck as the person in front of him swung his Zanpakuto with malicious intent. "Oi! What did I do to you?"

"My comrades and I were each assigned a job here," Ichigo and Kamina both listened to the monotone voice during the brief moment of peace, "Hobikou and Neme were instructed to incite mass destruction against the Soul Society…" the speaker shot a soft glare at both of his opponents, "_I _was to deal with enemy Soul Reapers. I allowed Neme to fight with you because I had underestimated you…" He paused as brows furrowed and he tightened his grip on his katana, "I will _not_ make the same mistake again."

"Oh?" Kamina tilted his head, "did we get a rise out of the emotional husk?" Suddenly, he was forced to arch his back and twist his head in an effort to dodge. Blood shot from the fresh sword wound on his cheek. Kamina's eyes darted to his left to find the Arrancar looping around and heading straight for him again.

"Damn it," Ichigo muttered under his breath. He flash stepped forward, putting himself between to the two combatants and blocking the subsequent sweep of Takara's blade.

"Ah! C'mon, I'm not even a Soul Eater thing! Why are you attacking me?!"

"Reaper!" Ichigo corrected, still staving off Takara's earlier attack.

"It does not matter, your Zanpakuto tells me enough, I will eliminate you both."

"I'm not going to let that happen," the orange haired defender retorted. "Getsuga Tenshou!" With a mighty swing, Ichigo let loose another blue scythe of **riatsu**. As he was swinging, Takara had pushed himself away using Zangetsu as leverage. He landed safely out of range of Ichigo's attack but soon found the Soul Reaper next to him anyway. Ichigo swung again, but was dodged outright this time. Takara returned with a few slashes of his own. The two blades danced and clashed in the sky as Kamina looked on. Immediately he remembered his… what did they call them again?

"Zan… pakuto?" he looked down at the ground where that strawberry guy had grabbed him. There it was, glinting under some dust: the old chief's sword. He drifted at first, but eventually found himself rushing to grab it; to have it in his hands once again.

The forgettable Arrancar was not oblivious to this. "_He's going for his Zanpakuto_," he decided to take it up a notch. He unleashed a furious barrage of sword strikes that caught his opponent by surprise. Ichigo had barely finished fending off the viciously precise assault when he realized that his attacker was no longer in front of him.

"What the…?" suddenly he heard the wind shift unnaturally and glanced down, "Kamina!"

"_I can't have this guy reach his sword_. _The orange haired one is difficult enough_."

Kamina was unaware of the approaching danger as he bent down to pick up and dust off his sword. He felt as if he was looking at it for the first time. Sure, he had used it before, but to what end? There was the fight with Viral… but it was not as if the sword as anything more than a tool he was using to block and attack with. It was no extension of his consciousness or anything… just a sword—not even _his_ sword. He had not thought of it before, but why _had_ it stayed with him? You cannot take things from one life into the next, right? This… Zanpakuto… what did that even mean? He bent further to clutch it.

His head shot up; time seemed to freeze. Takara was inches from his head, sword aimed at the back of his throat. Ichigo was not far behind and preparing for the worst with a look of extreme worry on his face. What was going to happen? He felt the smallest prick of metal beginning to enter from the back of his head. It was cold. Suddenly, Kamina was violently jerked away, the katana lost from his hands once more. Takara had missed his intended target. He hit the ground, going into a crouch and then shot back up into the sky. Not a second later, a bolt of white lightning seared the ground where Kamina just was. He looked back… well, at least the sword was alright.

Now it was Byakuya's turn to hold Kamina while flying through the air. The shirtless renegade noticed that the noble's hair was no longer held neatly in place by those hair pieces. Kamina was set down in the air again and Byakuya turned his back to him before he could say anything. Instead, the noble turned his attention back to his attacker. By comparison, Hobikou had taken a much heavier beating than his adversary. He was bleeding from various points on his body and was panting heavily. Byakuya had simply had his hair mussed a little.

"You never answered my question," the captain said in a tone of subdued impatience.

"**Teme**…," white light once more shot from the ground and wrapped around the huge Arrancar's body. "I'll always obey Aizen-sama's commands. He knows what must be done. It is the Divine Mandate! I'll obey him no matter the cost!" Hobikou charged with reckless abandonment the glow in his hands shared in his eyes. "**Banzai**! **Aizen-sama no tame ni**!!!"

"**Chire**… **Senbonzakura**."

Byakuya's blade evaporated into thousands of shimmering lights. As Hobikou was about to reach him, Kamina could be heard shouting in surprise as the noble flash stepped away, taking his captive with him. The giant stopped in the air and witnessed around him a vibrant display of what appeared to be cherry blossoms floating about. Suddenly, they all stopped, frozen as if by a command, then darted for him with malicious intent. He was too dazzled to react in time. Each of the thousand fragments of Byakuya's blade passed through him effortlessly. Hobikou's lifeless body reverted to his unreleased form and sailed to the ground leaving a crimson trail in the sky.

"Damn you, this…," Takara gripped the hilt of his blade tightly, "this wasn't supposed to happen!" All three of the people there took note of the Arrancar's unusual outburst. "_What's going on_?"

Ichigo took advantage of his opponent's conflictions. Charging with Zangetsu, he planned to cleave the guy in two and end it there. He sharpened his spiritual pressure, heightened his senses, drew closer and closer until—ching. "… _When did he… how_?" Takara stared daggers at the Soul Reaper who had just attacked him. Ichigo did not even seen him raise his sword from his side to block… and so sturdily at that. Ichigo's rush had not succeeded in pushing the Arrancar an inch.

"I guess every plan can have complications," he muttered, almost to himself, "even those of Aizen-sama." He looked around slowly, then up at the sun. "However, it seems almost time. These things no longer matter. You will all die here."

"What?" Ichigo questioned, still pressing his blade against Takara's.

"Time's up."

The ground shot apart chaotically in various places surrounding the four combatants. Huge beings bearing white masks with bodies resembling a black cloak slowly emerged from the shattered earth. Ichigo retreated from Takara and fell back next to Byakuya and Kamina… a Kamina that was exhibiting some very strange behavior. Was he… shaking?

"_What is this_?" wide-eyed, the leader of the Gurren Brigade asked himself, "… _is_… _it f-fear_? _It feels so unnatural_. _I haven't felt this in a long time_." He took a long look at his trembling hand. "_Simon_… _was it_," he clenched his hand into a fist. It did not stop shaking. "_Was it all just a show_? _Those things… those _things! _What are they_?_ What's going on at all_?_ What do I do with no one to_… _no one to_—?"

The giant figures began charging and firing off massive balls of red energy that destroyed anything in their path. The two people next to him appeared to be actively formulating a plan and readying themselves to put it into immediate action. But he himself… Kamina… stood still, frozen, unable to participate in any of their thoughts. He wanted to run… _run_! He of all people wanted to run away! "_Is it_… _the only reason I was brave_…," his pupils shrank in apprehension and bewilderment, "… _was it only a show_?!"

"_Help_!" a somewhat distant voice jarred him back into his senses.

"_What_?"

"_What's going on_? _I'm gonna die_!" who was that, it sounded so clear.

"_So familiar_…"

"_SOMEBODY HELP ME_!"

"Hey, are you there?!" a hand began waving in front of his face.

"Ichigo, take him away from here, he's gone into shock," the now familiar voice of Byakuya registered in Kamina's mind. "I'll handle things here."

"Right," for the third time today, the human rebel felt himself being grabbed in preparation for an impromptu trip through the air. However, before this trip could begin, Kamina ripped himself from Ichigo's grasp without saying a word. "What are you doing, we've gotta get you outta here!"

"_That voice_," Kamina was searching intensely, "_where is that voice coming from_?"

"_AAAAHH_!!!"

Kamina spotted a glint in the ground right in front of one of those lumbering giants with the creepy facemasks. The fear disappeared from within him. "_A new purpose_!" He rushed forward without any care for himself; his brilliantly reckless courage renewed.

"**Bakayarou**!" Ichigo called out to the shirtless man, "get back here!"

"_I must protect him_!" even if he wanted to hear, he was out of earshot of the Soul Reaper's plea. "_He needs me_!" Even Takara was surprised to see a blue blur shoot past him heading straight for one of the Menos Grande so recklessly. Kamina landed next to his target. It _was _the sword that was calling out for help, but why did the others not hear it? He knew that he did not have any time to question this or his sanity at the moment. Instead, he picked up the blade and cleared the debris from it with a single clean sweep in the air. Kamina seemed oblivious to the Menos in front of him was closing the gap between the two. Suddenly it stopped and a red orb of malicious energy began growing at its mouth.

"_W-who_—_what happened_?" Kamina looked fondly at the blade. It felt more like a part of him now, yet separate. He felt some responsibility to the thing, as if there was… wait, it was calling him, right? Does that not mean that there _is_ something in there?

"_W-who are you_?" the voice asked timidly. Kamina chuckled with a grin. The thing reminded him of Simon.

"My name's Kamina!" the man declared proudly, "who're you?"

"LOOK OUT!"

"Egh, that's not a very heroic name—," before the sword's holder could finish his thought, the air around him lit up in a glowing red.

**-----**

**A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed that, I'm going to do my best to keep working on it and hopefully I'LL FINALLY RESOLVE THIS FIGHT WITH THE NEXT CHAPTER. I really want to get moving on this storyline and I feel like it's stalling a little. I'll try to keep up my posting pace but no promises… I'm doing my best to keep college at bay and it hasn't even really gotten busy yet. Anyway, at least after this part, it'll get more interesting… interesting like Kamina's Shikai interesting. :D Until next time!**

**-----**

Words and Phrases that were not in English

**Pase por el Viento… Relámpago!: **Step on the Wind… Lightning!

**Kurae: **Take this!

**Hado:** Way of Destruction

**Byakurai:** Pale Lightning

**Getsuga Tenshou: **Moon-fang Heaven-piercer

**Riatsu:** the name for the spiritual energy of Soul Reapers and Hollows alike

**Teme: **Bastard (literally, a very rude way of saying "you")

**Banzai! Aizen-sama no tami ni!: **Hurrah! For the sake of Aizen-sama!

**Chire… Senbonzakura: **Scatter… Thousand Cherry Blossoms

**Bakayaro: **You giant idiot!


	4. A Challenge For Our New Friendship

**A/N: OK, so instead of making one epically long chapter, I've decided to break this thing down into two chapters. However, since that would only drag the story on MORE... I decided to make a double release out of the whole production. Enjoy your two chapters at once! Peace.**

**I do not own Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann or Bleach**

**-----**

**CHAPTER FOUR: **A Challenge For Our New Friendship.

Kamina's eyes shot up. It was like a bright red sun was bearing down on him. He knew at this point that moving out of the way was out of the option… not that that was ever really a problem before. He smirked, and gripping his blade, he thrust the piece of metal into the air, holding it over his head horizontally.

"_Wha_—_whoa_, _what are you doing_?!" the sword cried out as it saw the huge mass of energy leave the gargantuan robed creature's mouth at a terrifying speed.

"Don't worry!" the shirtless warrior assured, though if looking at a the situation from a distance, it would appear as if he was yelling to himself. "You've never let me down before!"

"_Before_?" the blade glimmered frighteningly in the red haze that had become the air around it, "_b-but_, _I don't remember anything before only a few minutes ago_!" There was no time to expand further on the subject. The red orb was only inches from the tip of the blade.

"Hah! I believe in you, Sword!" suddenly, it seemed like time had froze.

"_Believes_… _in me_?"

The cero crashed violently into the sword and the figure holding it, much to the dismay of the two Soul Reapers witnessing the spectacle. The Arrancar only found it to be the natural consequence—the death of a man who charged head-first into a rampaging Menos Grande. Just as Ichigo was about to call out the name of the, by now, vaporized man in regret, he noticed the cero parting in an unnatural way. At first, the blast had shot straight into the ground, but now it was shooting off to the side as if something was breaking it down the middle. Something was. There stood Kamina, blade in hand, parting the lethal cero from where he stood—still not a scratch on him.

"So what is your name?" the leader of the Gurren Brigade asked his weapon politely.

"_M-my name_? _I-I hadn't thought about it_."

Kamina frowned a bit at this, "Well, you've gotta have a name," he almost whined.

"_Name_… _something about a_… _Ten_…" suddenly the light gleamed over the blade without Kamina moving it, as if to say that the preverbal light bulb went off in the sword's head, "_**Tenshou**_!"

"Tenshou…," a wide grin parsed across the shirtless man's face in obvious pleasure, "How appropriate!" Even though its cero had been nullified, the Menos before the pair had not stopped encroaching. The ground was now rumbling violently about Kamina. He gazed up, still wearing the smirk from having learned his sword's name. "Alright, Tenshou," he said aloud, "Let's show this ugly-mug who he's dealing with!"

With that, the renegade jumped mightily into the center of the Menos, straight through the hole in its body, laughing at his feat as he turned around in mid-air. The amalgam of evil spirits was not too happy about this, and made an about face before charging another cero to fire at the object of its rage. Kamina simply skidded through the air before coming to a stop, suspended by his reiatsu.

"Ready to do it again?"

"_Again_? _Do what_?"

"Here it comes!" the cero was reaching its full size and Kamina charged for it.

"_W-wait_, _let's not be hasty_!" the sword pleaded as it again became the leading edge of its wielder's body. If a katana could cry, Kamina would probably have been drenched halfway to his target.

The Menos fired off its cero. The red orb met the blue blur and the metal wisp in the middle of the two sliced cleanly through the negative energy. The cero dissipated and a moment's pause revealed Kamina standing lazily about fifty feet behind the Menos' head. He lifted his blade onto his shoulder. Upon the metal resting on his skin, the Menos behind him split in half from the head down and evaporated into the sky.

"W-who _is _this guy?!" Ichigo thought aloud. Byakuya had neither a comment nor an answer, but even someone untrained in reading expressions could tell that the habitually stoic noble was astonished.

Takara had witnessed the whole thing after the breaking up of the first cero and only one word seemed to encompass all of the thoughts currently running through the quiet Arrancar's mind: "_Shit_." He knew that the guy was strong—stronger at least than some of the average Soul Reapers, but _this_… this was bordering on the obscene. However, more disturbing than anything else was the fact that his spiritual pressure seemed to have just magically spiked only moments ago after first beginning his fight with the Menos. "_What could have happened_?"

At the same moment, Ichigo and Byakuya both realized that they were still surrounded by mindless and chaotic masses of hollows bent on the destruction of everything around them. The two Soul Reapers nodded to each other and leapt into action, quickly dispatching the numerous Menos Grande, one by one. Kamina, on the other hand, had taken to sitting cross-legged in the air while admiring his sword as if seeing it for the first time.

Takara knew that he had lost control of the situation… at least at this level. "_Damn it_!" he cursed inwardly. He cursed himself for letting his comrades die, for not being strong enough… but more so… he cursed his leader Sousuke Aizen for being so very wrong. "_Damn you, Aizen_!" Ichigo and Byakuya had just finished off the final Menos when they sensed a very dense spiritual pressure. They turned around just in time to see the only remaining Arrancar in the Soul Society release his Zanpakuto. "**Haga el último ruido**… **Campana**."

A wind whipped up around Takara as his sword turned to dust and flew into the gust. The sound of soft chiming could be heard as the release was completed. Takara's face was now entirely covered in a bony helmet leaving nothing exposed but his mouth. On his head rested a wide, conical hat of the same bone similar to those worn by workers in rice paddies. Along the brim were hung what appeared to be ten small wind chimes suspended by string and spaced evenly. A long, high collared coat now composed his uniform, the tails of which flowed quietly in the wind. His pants had become somewhat baggy and were tied at his ankles where they met the sandals. All remained the typical Arrancar white with some black inlays.

The captain and substitute Soul Reaper both went on the defensive after witnessing the spectacle, not wanting to do anything hasty before knowing exactly what this Arrancar was capable of. It was not long before Takara's released form went on the offensive. His hand moved slowly to his hat to remove it. It just seemed ordinary except for the cylindrical bells hanging on the brim. Suddenly, he launched it like a Frisbee at Ichigo and Byakuya; the chimes at the edges suspended outwards by centripetal force. Captain Kuchiki readied himself for a flashstep, but instead the hat stopped only a foot short of his face… most of the chimes shot forward in accordance with their inertia and rang sweetly. However, it seemed that some of the stringed chimes remained stiff, defying physics.

Then, the Arrancar dashed to meet his enemies using sonido… but… there was no trademark sound… no sound at all. Taken aback by this, Ichigo felt unable to dodge as quickly as his Soul Reaper counterpart. Rather, in a daze, eyes wide open the orange haired Shinigami did nothing but watch as Takara continued his focused dash… but then he made no move to attack Zangetsu's wielder. Instead, he merely grabbed his hat, still hanging in the air and rapidly slowed to a stop right behind Ichigo. It was silent… eerily silent… _too_ silent. Ichigo felt afraid to breathe. But then he heard something. Takara had reached up slowly to the left of his hat and with his left hand, and lightly ran his finger across a few of his chimes ringing them softly.

Byakuya was already on the attack. Hoping to prevent anything from happening to his ally, he had already begun flash stepping towards the Arrancar. Realizing this, Takara shot away with sonido, and Byakuya landed right where he was before flash stepping again. Then he heard one of the most pained screams he had ever heard in his life. The noble stopped cold in his tracks. Looking back he saw Ichigo screaming, clutching his head in agony. Zangetsu had seemed forgotten as it dropped to the ground from the air Ichigo was floating in.

"AAAAAGHH!" Ichigo was yelling in extreme pain. "_The flash step_, _the sonido_, _their movements_! _EVERYTHING_!" he gripped his head tighter in thought, hands trembling furiously, "_Why is it all so loud_?!"

"Don't ask him what's wrong," came a voice that seemed right next to his own ear. Byakuya's vision shot back towards where he last remembered his enemy standing. There he was again… he had not moved, but… the words seemed so close. "He won't hear your voice," it stated coldly. Byakuya could see the Arrancar's lips moving but it seemed as if his voice box had been grafted to the Kuchiki's cheek in terms of the volume and clarity.

The captain narrowed his eyes. His only response was to hold his sword upside-down before himself. He spoke the words… did he not? His Zanpakuto remained in its base state, the blade still metallic. Chire, Senbonzakura. What was this? The command did not register. A voice caught the noble's attention once more. The Arrancar was addressing him, but this time, the close distance of his voice matched his actual distance from the Soul Reaper. When did he sneak up on him?

"You hear what I want you to hear," the words exited his mouth free of emotion. The air was silent; devoid of life. "Everything does. In noise there is chaos and chance. Silence brings calm and order." He disappeared from view using sonido. "All things do as they are told when only one voice is able to give commands." Takara strafed in front of Byakuya for a split second, connecting his shrouded eyes with those of the noble before darting off again, "You're alone, captain."

Ichigo had retrieved Zangetsu from the ground. Even the simple action of gripping the blade's hilt cut into his ears with almost unbearable force. "_Damn it_!" he cursed silently seeing that Byakuya had now engaged the Arrancar, "_I can't even flash step because of the wind in my ears_!" Even the sound of the two Zanpakuto colliding one hundred feet above Ichigo echoed loudly, causing the orange-haired Soul Reaper to cringe in discomfort. "_How am I supposed to fight_? _Wait_!" He held back Zangetsu, ready to swing and let forth a powerful burst of riatsu. "_I'll just have to bear with it_!" He shut his eyes and yelled, "Getsuga Tenshou!" The sword sweeped horizontally, causing Ichigo extreme discomfort from the amplified sound, but the most disturbing thing for him was that nothing had happened. His **shikai**'s ability had failed and Ichigo was left to ponder what had happened in dismay.

Ponder silently… that is until a now familiarly obnoxious voice caused him to nearly shatter his own teeth at how hard he cringed in pain, "Hiiiiyaaaaah!" Kamina was not even closer than fifty feet from Ichigo, but his shouting was simply loud enough to catch the attention of even Takara who was still dealing with one opponent. The shirtless renegade shot forward through the air to aid the Soul Reaper captain.

"_Damn_... _him again_," Takara thought, "_And the orange-haired boy heard him too. That means he wasn't affected. He must've been out of earshot the first time I unleashed Campana_. _I need to incapacitate one of these two quickly_. _I can't take on both of them_." Kamina continued on his course for the Arrancar, sword brandished proudly. No longer with a sword of his own, Takara's released form was simultaneously powerful and vulnerable in various ways. Aizen's soldier sped away from the shirtless brawler's sword, putting as much distance between himself and the two Zanpakuto wielders. He then proceeded to repeat the process that had put him at an advantage against the two official Soul Reapers. His hat shot forward and stopped in front of Kamina, many of the chimes shooting forward and some remaining still, all producing a beautiful melody that echoed through the air.

And again, Takara shot forward to retrieve his rice paddy hat, but this time Byakuya was ready for his enemy. He flash stepped forth and intercepted the speedy Arrancar before his hand could reach for the musical hat.

"_Shit_!" Unable to grab his article of clothing without losing a limb in the process, Takara shot off to the side, regretfully and angrily watching the hat of bone drop through the air and land on the ground. Unable to further activate any of his powers, the Arrancar went on the defensive as he rapidly descended to retrieve his precious music maker. Not willing to allow this, Byakuya had already dived after him when Kamina noticed something peculiar: there was no longer any sound. Worried, he turned to his talking sword, opening his mouth, he found that he himself no longer made any sound as well.

"_But we've got a special connection, right_?" he smirked, thinking silently towards the blade. No response. Kamina's eyes shot open. What was going on? "_Tenshou_?!" Nothing.

**-----**

The Kuchiki had caught up to Takara and had forced the Arrancar to yet again abandon his quest to take back his only real weapon. Byakuya landed softly, imposing himself between a scowling Takara and his prize. Suddenly, something else scared him more. A voice from above came crashing through the air.

"You bastard!" Kamina roared, silent to everyone but Takara who shuddered at the rage conveyed in the man's cry. "What did you do to Tenshou?!"

The leader of the Gurren Brigade crashed into the ground violently, sending chunks of earth shooting in all directions. However, the scariest thing was that out of worry for his blade, Kamina had securely slipped into between his belt and his pants and resorted to using his fists. Takara shot backwards to avoid the blow and ran right into range of Captain Kuchiki's katana who had sped behind the Arrancar using the commotion created by Kamina as cover. Caught by surprise, Takara did his best to avoid the noble, but was still caught in the chin by Senbonzakura before completely getting away. Wincing in pain, the elite hollow took to the air and remained floating; blood dripping slowly down his ankle and off of his foot.

Not willing to give his enemy a break, Kamina launched back on the offensive. "Bring my sword back!" Takara blocked the first punch and the tattooed berserker let loose another one. The Arrancar tilted his head to avoid this one. The fist that had originally missed its target now opened up and the palm shot back and clasped onto the back of Takara's neck. Takara's eyes went wide as he saw opponent draw himself closer and delivered a fierce knee into the hollow's abdomen. Takara's head shot forward and released a violent cough.

As if that was not enough, he heard Byakuya flash step to his side, no doubt with his sword ready to skewer him. In a desperate straight, Takara tilted away from the captain exposing Kamina's back to the noble whose arm was cocked back ready to spear his enemy. Byakuya resisted the urge to end the battle at the cost of this man's life giving the Arrancar the opportunity to kick Kamina off of him and into the Soul Reaper behind him. Takara, using his kick as leverage, blasted backwards away from his two enemies.

"_Damn it all_!" he was panting, "_At this rate, I won't be able to maintain my release. Then there's no stopping the other guy from joining the fight too_." As the Soul Reaper and renegade unleashed a barrage of attacks, Takara went into a desperate dance of dodges and near escapes; each maneuver draining from his already slim supply of energy. Finally, unable to keep up the pace, Kamina caught the Arrancar off guard and slammed an elbow into Takara's back sending him flying into the ground. The hollow rose to his feet slowly realizing that he was still being attacked.

It all seemed so unreal to him. Why had all of this happened. How could it be? It even seemed as if the other Menos on the other side of the Soul Society had been dispatched as well. How was he so wrong…? He and his team had basically been thrown to the dogs. "_Did_… _were we be_… _betrayed_?" With this idea finally penetrating his head and bouncing around in his thoughts, an immense feeling of resignation shot through him. Why should he hope? What was there to do now but die? Still he wondered—even in this state of supreme hopelessness—he wondered… why.

Just as Byakuya rushed to deliver the final blow through the back of the Arrancar's neck, another figure imposed himself between Takara and the captain at the last second, harmlessly redirecting Senbonzakura to the side.

"Damn, Takara," the Arrancar being addressed slowly turned around and displayed a look of mild shock. A soldier like himself stood blocking the attack that should have killed him. He wore the same clothing as Takara, but his shoulder-length wild white mane set him completely apart from the forgettable-looking Kidai. "You always were a weakling, but this is too much," the man's words were almost grim. Byakuya did not bother asking for the newcomer's name as he had still not regained any of his hearing, he merely narrowed his eyes and focused on the number fifteen branded on the man's forehead. "Letting your entire team die and then getting beaten to a pulp by a lone captain and… and, who the hell is that? That guy doesn't even look like a Soul Reaper! Man, if it wasn't for Aizen-sama's orders, I'd've completely left you for dead by now. I don't know what he sees in you to ask me to save you like this."

"Kouhetsu," Takara's words were a strange mix of thanks, spite, and unknowing in terms of what to say next.

"Shut your face, worm," the rank fifteen Arrancar spat coldly, not even turning his head to acknowledge his addresser. Rather, Kouhetsu responded with a firm kick to Takara's chest, knocking him back to the ground in pain. "Just keep maintaining your release. I'll finish this in a second." He paused for a second and a sickly grin parsed across his face, "But make sure they can hear me. I want to have them know the true error of their ways before they die." Kouhetsu finally broke swords with Byakuya. The Soul Reaper put a little distance between himself and the new Arrancar… while Kamina—still on a rampage—decided it better to simply rush in for the kill. This would prove to be a bad idea.

"**Hagase mi cuerpo**… **Entrañas**," suddenly, the Arrancar's katana rapidly shot up into his arm. The words had just exited the man's mouth when Kamina's fist landed on him. A short pause followed before the leader of the Gurren Brigade yelled in pain and his fist was painfully withdrawn from its target. Kamina noticed that he was bleeding profusely from his knuckles. He looked up and saw the man grin sadistically, yet it seemed like nothing had changed in his appearance.

**-----**

**A/N: The next chapter has Kamina's shikai so keep reading! :P It also has the ending of this freaking battle! I know, incredible, right? o.O**

**-----**

Foreign Words...

**Tenshou: **Heaven Piercer

**Haga el último ruido**… **Campana: **Make the final noise... Bell

**Shikai: **Part Release

**Hagase mi cuerpo**… **Entrañas: **Become my body... Entrails


	5. Believe In Me Who Believes In You!

**A/N: Bust out the party-favors, it's showdown time in Soul Society! Wait... what?**

**I still don't own Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann or Bleach or anything regarding the two... [sigh].**

**-----**

**CHAPTER FIVE: **Believe In Me Who Believes In You!

"_Damn it all_," Ichigo thought to himself upon seeing Kamina yell and cringe despite the absence of sound. In spite of the intense noise created by his picking up of Zangetsu, the substitute Soul Reaper was hell-bent on rejoining the battle. That is until Takara, dipping into the remnants of his strength, dashed over to Ichigo and stood next to his ear.

"I will not allow you to interfere," the whisper was so close that the tiny bones within Ichigo's ears seemed to rattle near to pieces. Without a second's pause, Takara brought his right hand up to the orange-haired warrior's ear and snapped his fingers. Ichigo's eyes went wide and a small stream of blood trickled down from his ears. The Soul Reaper gripped his head tightly and screamed, kneeling down in agony. Zangetsu clattered to the ground.

**-----**

Byakuya recognized Ichigo's obvious pain and knew that this fight needed to end quickly. Being unable to release his Zanpakuto and unable to communicate with anyone due to the problems generated by the chime-wearing Arrancar's release only made things worse. As if that was not enough, he noticed the shirtless man's issue when attacking the new arrival to the battle. Upon striking the man with his bare hand, he received wounds in recoil similar to those as if he had been slashed across his fist from a knife.

Unwilling to wait around for his tattooed ally to be killed, the captain sprang into action. Flash stepping at blinding speeds, he swung his Senbonzakura for the newcomer's neck. It passed no further than the most superficial layer of skin. Kouhetsu turned his head and gazed at the Soul Reaper in annoyance.

"Tch," he moved his left arm up rather unthreateningly, "and from the looks of your jacket, you're a captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads too. I'm disappointed." Suddenly, Byakuya felt steel pass through the left side of his chest. It was as if the Arrancar's fibula had been replaced by a katana. The metal blade had swung out of his forearm as if it were in a Swiss army knife and cut deeply into the Kuchiki's pectoral region. The captain immediately sprang backwards in defense having done no damage and stared daggers at his enemy. Kouhetsu merely stood there still wearing that annoyed look with the blade in his arm still protruding from his arm. Kamina was taken aback as well by this new ability displayed by his opponent.

Byakuya exchanged glances with the wounded brawler who shared his enemy and they both nodded in agreement. The two charged, the captain in silence and the shirtless renegade accompanied by a loud war cry. Kamina launched a ferocious kick at Kouhetsu and easily made connection due to the Arrancar's unwillingness to dodge. His sandal landed bluntly on the hollow's face. As soon as it made contact, Kamina's sandal appeared to be slashed into three pieces as if his target's furrowed brow willed it to be. Light slash marked even penetrated slightly into the Gurren Brigader's foot and he shot back and hopped about while making pained noises that made it sound like his foot was on fire.

Unwilling to give up, the Kuchiki continued the onslaught by striking and dodging repetitively, hoping to find a weakness. Moving from general annoyance to straight anger, the Arrancar was getting fed up with this bothersome Soul Reaper and decided to take to the offensive himself. He caught the next swing of Byakuya's sword, much to the captain's surprise. He gripped the blade tightly, not so much as a drop of blood escaping his skin, and drew the noble in as blades shot forth from the tips of his free hand as if his finger bones had become claws. With Byakuya in range, Kouhetsu made a swift strike that penetrated straight through his target's chest.

"No!" Kamina shouted as he rushed the Arrancar once again. He delivered another kick to the back of Kouhetsu's neck. His sandal split apart again and the brawler flipped backwards off of his target. Upon landing, he was still determined to keep up the assault. He threw himself forward and let loose a flurry of punches. Blood now covered the back of Kouhetsu's uniform… but it was not his own. Kamina's hands had become crimsoned and torn, the bone slightly visible through the damage.

"Away from me pest," the Arrancar ordered. He wrested Byakuya from his clawed hand with a mighty lurch, allowing the captain to stumble backwards to his knee. Kouhetsu then swung his hand around and delivered a bladed slap to Kamina's face throwing him to the side in pain.

"I have a mission here," Aizen's soldier continued, "to rescue this damn weakling," his eyes shifted briefly to Takara who was panting in a corner, still being drained by the maintenance of his release, "and to carry out the will of Aizen-sama."

"And who the hell is this Aizen guy you love?" Kamina scowled, still getting up after hitting a wall.

"Don't speak of him as if he were a commoner, you wretch!" Kouhetsu flashed over to the ailing brigade leader and kicked him in the abdomen with blades extending out of his foot. Kamina let out a mighty wail. The Arrancar twisted his foot slightly before yanking it out. "The will of Aizen-sama is absolute. It is above us all. I don't even comprehend it. It simply is." An arrogant frown grew on Kouhetsu's visage, "You should have known your place by now." Kamina glared angrily at this. "But then again, you are simply a lost soul; lost from the mandate of our great leader. You don't know where to go or how to even stand up. I pity you."

"You shut up!" Kamina shouted, head still bent forward in feigned submission. He retrieved his blade from his side and used it to steady his rise. "I can't take stock in any of that crap!" he stood tall and swung the katana so that it rested lightly upon his shoulder. He pointed viciously at the Arrancar, "I pity you! You're bound to the earth by some stupid man's will! A true man is bound by nothing! I will one day grasp the heavens themselves and on that day I will look down and see you in chains!"

"Ignorant bastard!" Kouhetsu rushed at the tenacious demon leader to avenge his damaged ego. He cocked his right arm back to throw a punch and blades shot out of his arm and fingers. Kamina parried with Tenshou, positioning the blade perfectly in between the various spines jutting from his attacker's fingers and preventing any attack from getting through. Frustrated, the Arrancar sprouted blades from his other arm, his legs, his chest… in essence, he became a veritable porcupine. Kouhetsu then began punching, kicking, spinning, flipping, using every surface of his body as the weapon it had become. Kamina did all he could to fend off the onslaught.

**-----**

"_Why is it so dark_? _Wait_… _is that_… _Kamina_? _Kamina_! _Is he talking to me_? _Why can't I hear him_? _Kamina_?!"

"_Something's wrong, something's really wrong here_."

"_No wait, stop, I can still fight_! _Don't do this yourself_! _He's_... _he's not listening_? _Has he forgotten about me_?"

"_Now who's this new guy_—_KAMINA_!!"

"_No_… _no_… _don't get up, we've gotta get away_. _He's too strong_. _Look at what he did to you_! _Kamina, please_!"

"_No_! _Run away_! _I can't do this_! _I_… _I_… _I ca_—_AGH_!!"

**-----**

With the last parry, Kamina's eyes widened. He saw a small crack split halfway through his katana's blade. He side-stepped the next attack and retreated to a safe distance. "Tenshou, can you hear me?" No response. Kamina smirked a little; rather sadly, "Would you really let someone just break our bond like that?"

"_He's looking at me_…"

"These guys say that they're stronger than us…"

"_What is he saying_? _He looks_… _almost sad_."

"Maybe they are… but are they stronger than the bonds of friendship?!"

"Enough of this!" screamed Kouhetsu, "one of your friends has been broken! The other is wounded and knows that he cannot defeat me! Give up so I can end this!"

"You're an idiot!" Kamina laughed, "Why would you ask such a thing of the tenacious demon leader of the Great Gurren Brigade?!" The ascended hollow scowled and the bladed protrusions on his body seemed to tremble in rage. "Whether my friends are wounded or well, alive or dead, they are always in my heart! As long as they are with me, I will never give up for their sake!"

"… _Never_… _give up_? _But_… _t-the pain_. _I_…"

"We all share a bond of blood and brotherhood! I may not know where they are anymore or even where the hell I am right now, but I know… I KNOW… that they will never leave my side…!"

"No more babbling, it's time you die!" the Arrancar rushed forward fists-first. Kamina threw Tenshou between him and his enemy, blocking the attack.

"And I will never leave theirs," the wounded brigader proclaimed zealously with his opponent not more than a foot from his own face. "Tenshou! You are my partner here, and as such, I will never desert you no matter what happens! If you break, then so be it! I WILL NOT MOVE FROM THIS SPOT!" Cracks began appearing across the sword's edge while Kouhetsu kept up the pressure.

"_His spiritual pressure seems to be weakening_," Takara's savoir thought to himself, "_The will of his Zanpakuto will be entirely broken soon_." He grinned seeing more slits appear in the metal as the struggle continued.

"I believe in you, Tenshou."

"_It hurts_."

"I believe that the bond of friendship can't be muted by anyone! It won't be broken! I believe in myself and will carry this idea upon my shoulders until the end of time, no matter what happens!"

"_It hurts so badly_. _But_…"

"You can trust me! But you just need to believe in yourself!" a few of the cracks were nearly reaching all the way across the blade.

"_It hurts, but Kamina_… _he is in pain as well_!" the sword was creaking in pain, readying itself to snap violently.

"Believe in yourself!"

"_I can do this_! _For Kamina_! _For my friend_!"

"_**Omai-o shinjerou**_… _**TENSHOU**_!!!"

"What the hell—?! GAH!" Suddenly, Kamina's sword erupted in a blaze of white light. The cracks instantly sealed themselves and restored its condition anew. Kouhetsu jumped back at the new development and looked on warily for what was to come. Kamina thrust his trusty blade into the air and held it proudly as the area around him basked in the enchanting aura of the white light. Ichigo and Byakuya, Takara and Kouhetsu, both parties looked on in awe as the Gurren Brigader's katana slowly transformed in front of their eyes. As the pommel's wrapping changed to a spiraling whirl of blue and red, the Zanpakuto's hilt transformed into two black versions of those gaudy sunglasses Kamina had been wearing when he first showed up in Soul Society. Then, the blade, still cloaked in its brilliant aura, spasmed, shifted, and twirled in its place, eventually taking on the shape of a flawless drill, not much wider than the actual blade itself, but slightly longer.

"I-Impossible! Damn it!" Kouhetsu cursed at his charge, "He shouldn't've been able to use his shikai! Takara, I told you to maintain your release!"

"I… I did," the defeated Arrancar was just as much surprised at this turn of events as everyone else.

Kouhetsu simply responded with a guttural roar and ripped his clothing off except for his uniform pants revealing the true extent to which his power had affected him. Blades were jutting out of him from his spine and upper back, his ribcage, his shoulders, his forearms and hands, and his neck. It appears that now even his teeth were bladed and geared to gnashing his opponent to pieces. The bladed Arrancar let loose a battle cry and charged Kamina who had now brought Tenshou down to his side.

The maniacal hollow thrust out his right hand in hopes of plunging it into his enemy's chest in order to rip out his heart, but was stopped short of this goal. Kamina had easily blocked the Arrancar's bladed arm and hand with his ascended Zanpakuto. A look of serious determination permeated the renegade's eyes. Kouhetsu could almost swear that he saw a fire in his pupils. Unwilling to surrender then and there, the zealous follower of Aizen's cried loudly and the blades in his right arm and hand made sickly noises as they began extending, reaching closer to Kamina's unprotected flesh. The tenacious renegade furrowed his brows and cut upwards with his sword severing the extended strips of metal from their creator.

"Aaaagh!" Kouhetsu cried in pain as he retracted his now bloodied hand from combat and looked evilly at his adversary with a mix of envy and absolute disgust. "Damn you, you wretch!" the Arrancar looked around in a sense of panic, looking for anything to gain an edge over this demon he was fighting. His eyes came to a stop on Ichigo. "Fine then," Kouhetsu chuckled, "if I can't kill you, then you friend dies!" Ichigo could still not hear and was in no condition to fight with Takara's release still in effect but when those windows to the bladed Arrancar's soul met with his own, he knew that there was going to be trouble.

"Make your peace with God, carrot-head!" Kouhetsu laughed maniacally.

"No more!" Kamina shouted, stealing away his opponent's attention once again.

"Gaaaaagh!" not willing to risk losing a race to this persistent opponent, the angry hollow opted for his trump card. "Fine then, have it your way! But now you've made your deathwish!" Kouhetsu jumped into the air and stood floating. He arched his back and all of his blades withdrew into his body. Takara's eyes shot open in fear knowing that at this range he would most definitely be caught in the shockwave. However, he was unable to really move and resigned himself to death.

It was at this moment of resignation that Byakuya appeared from seemingly nowhere, at flash step speeds already carrying Ichigo. He pommeled the wounded hollow on the head with Senbonzakura, knocking him into a daze before sheathing his sword, grabbing him, and taking off for a safer vantage point. Apparently the Kuchiki had the same idea in his head about the next attack as Takara had.

After all of the steel appendages had receded, Kouhetsu opened his mouth as wide as he could manage and what appeared to be a cannon emerged from it. He threw his head forward, gazing down at Kamina, eyes wide in rage. "METAL CERO!!!" A steely colored ball of energy amassed itself around the opening of the cannon. After a few seconds, the blast discharged, flinging an immense amount of lethal energy embedded with various length blades at the blue headed warrior.

Kamina held out Tenshou as the beam approached him. "It won't break this sword!" he proclaimed. The blast did not even touch his sword. The spiritual pressure surrounding Kamina and his Zanpakuto parted the massive Metal Cero leaving twin trails of intense destruction to either side of him. However, a swath of stability and purity remained untouched. Standing at the very front of this declaration of defiance was Kamina.

"Tha-that's… IMPOSSIBLE!"

"**Kiu Satsu**." Kamina said quietly as he reached for the hilt of his blade. He removed the two sunglasses-shaped hilt pieces and lined them on top of one another in his right hand. Kamina then slid his left leg back to get into a better stance before hurling the sunglasses at his enemy like a Frisbee. The gaudy piece of eyewear split back into two as they spun towards Kouhetsu. Each half of the sunglasses then stopped abruptly on either side of the Arrancar before releasing a strange blue aura of spiritual pressure around their target. This pressure was so dense that Kouhetsu could hardly breathe much less move. With his target secured, Kamina lifted his Zanpakuto above his head, with the tip of the drill pointed straight to the heavens.

"**GIGA**…"

Without warning, drills of varying lengths randomly sprouted from all sides of the blade, the pommel, and even Kamina's forearm before rapidly retracting to where they had come from. Next, as if the previous action had somehow focused all of the potential of the Zanpakuto, the drill-blade doubled in size… then tripled—quadrupled? It grew to the height of a two-story house in under a second yet Kamina still supported it with one arm as if it were nothing at all.

"**DRILL**…"

Kamina lowered his mighty drill and placed his free hand on it. Giving it a powerful tug, he sent his weapon spinning madly. The leader of the Gurren Brigade shot his head up and stared down his intended target.

"**BREAAAKKKAAAAAHHH**!!!"

Kamina lept into the air and held his spinning drill ahead of him. He sped on with such ferocity that he himself was engulfed by a magnificent blue light that radiated from the bottom of the drill and seemed to propel it forwards into the heavens. The drill made contact with Kouhetsu, shooting straight through him, in spite of whatever kind of defenses he still might have had within his body. Upon exiting the extraordinarily gaping hole created in his enemy, Kamina landed upon a roof and the enormous drill returned to normal size.

The Arrancar still retained consciousness, his body was nearly obliterated, but now his soul would undergo purification thanks to his defeat at the hands of Kamina's Zanpakuto. A column of blue light shot from the clouds down to the ground, engulfing the still-suspended remains of Kouhetsu. There was a pause before a great explosion echoed throughout Soul Society heralding the defeat of the former rank fifteen Arrancar. Amid the explosion, the two pairs of sunglasses flung themselves through the air, back to Kamina and reattached themselves onto the hilt.

**-----**

Witnessing the tremendous spectacle had almost made Byakuya forget that he still had a dangerous Arrancar of his own to deal with. He glanced over at the wounded Takara and slowly drew his sword to finish the job. "This will end it," he said aloud even though he could still not hear himself.

"No," Takara's voice rang in the captain's head, "I will do it myself." And with that, the influence of Campana was dispelled. His uniform reverted back to normal and Byakuya and Ichigo regained their normal hearing, as well as their ability to communicate with their Zanpakuto. "But… before you do," the rank twenty-four suggested with a nod to the noble's katana, "I… want to…"

The Kuchiki and Kurosaki were now thoroughly interested in what their enemy had to say. What kind of last request would an Arrancar have?

"Man, all of this probably would've been so much easier if I had just joined that stupid resistance cell back in Hueco Mundo," he complained to himself.

"What resistance cell?" the two Soul Reapers chimed in simultaneously.

**-----**

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed it! I had a BLAST writing it lol. Giga Drill Breaker for the ultimate win. But now I can start with the actual storyline! EL GASP! I'll see you next time. Don't forget to be awesome and review puh-weez. :3**

**-----**

Running out of things to put down here

**Omai-o shinjerou**... **Tenshou: **Believe in yourself... Heaven Piercer (_Kamina's call-line for when he needs to activate his shikai_)

**Kiu Satsu: **Literally, this is just "Certain Kill" said with a Japanese accent.

**Giga Drill Breaker: **This phrase is of the Human dialect for something to the effect of, "Behold your doom as my infinite levels of Awesome, GAR, and Win flood forth from me to smite you in the most epic way possible." Then again, I could just be paraphrasing.


	6. Dead

DISCLAIMER:  
First off, no even after two or three or however many years it's been, I STILL don't own either Bleach or TTGL.  
Secondly, I'm not even sure why I'm doing this again, haha. You could probably thank a few too many random responses that trickled unexpectedly into my email inbox but whatever. Furthermore, don't expect this to be serious. If anything, I see this as simply some silly, fun practice for my writing skills. I now intend to finish this... maybe... but don't expect regularity and DO expect a lot of sarcasm regarding my feelings towards these two series; their essence and their plots. I'm here to practice and entertain. That being said you'll probably see a lot of subtle to obvious bashing and a lot of out-of-character action. Now then... if you're still on board after reading that THEN HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS and get ready for a new Ka Hasuken writing style and attitude that's years in the making!

Kamina's drill-blade twisted, glimmered back into it's natural state. The sun flickered across the lethal edge and light streaks danced down the steel as if the sword were smiling.

"Bros for life," Kamina said contentedly and tapped the blade with his fist. Blood abruptly streamed down the katana's edge amid a long, dense, stoically awkward silence preceeding an obnoxious scream of pain.

"You mean the Hollows fight against Aizen in Hueco Mundo?" Ichicgo rushed Takara and lifted him by his collar because his previously life-threatening injuries had somehow vanished or were being ignored as does often occur in this series.

"How could I put this?" Takara spoke calmly, perhaps to tired too care about his situation anymore. "He's our world's playground bully. Nobody enjoys living with him around."

"So why aren't you resisting too?"

"You know what happens when the little kid opposes the bully, yes?"

"Do Hollows have lunch money?"

"Quiet, the two of you," Byakuya interrupted. He approached Takara, "You will tell us wht you know later when you are in-"

"BWAAGH!" a bolt of blue hair and gaudy sunglasses appeared in front of the trio gripping a bleeding hand. "I need generic anime healing gauze!" Kamina quickly tore out some white wrapping from Ichigo's uniform and bandaged his hand.

"Hey, don't wrap your wounds with my soul!"

Kamina ripped away some more white to secure the bandage.

"ACK!"

"Aizen must have a good reason for not conquering this place if he knows this is how you normally behave."

"He knows what's happening here in Soul Society?" Ichigo asked, changing moods faster than a prepubescent girl.

"I don't know for sure, but I assume. He is Aizen after all. He rolled through Hueco Mundo faster than a Muslim through medieval Spain. Who knows the limits of his power?"

"You've gotta know something! What about that resistance cell?"

"Ichigo, that's enough," Byakuya tried to maintain control of the situation. "We will takehim to custody for further questioning."

"Where are you gonna hold that guy?" Kamina's question was a wave of disrespect washing over the Soul Reaper captain's face.

"You," the pink captain began calmly, "I'm not sure who you are but you seem capable with your zanpakuto."

"This guy?" the Gurren Brigader asked, brandishing his blade, "You're damn right!"

"Don't be so cocky."

"Oi!"

"I will make a report to the Head Captain but until he replies, you will remain under my close watch-"

"Bah, who wants to talk to me THIS TIME?" a grumpy voice rasped from behind some rubble.

Byakuya wasn't used to being interrupted so often.

"Who goes-?" he turned around and saw a stocky old man in a captain's uniform. His eyes were deep, age-carved slits in his skull, his beard was a white spike that dropped to his abdomen and he walked with a cane the size of a small child. Everything about him screamed, "Shut your cake hole and pay attention while I'm in the room."

"Head Captain Yamamoto!"

"Slayer of Hollows and Getter of Bitches," the old man tapped his cane against the ground with a thud. "So there I was. Talking a nice stroll through Rukon when suddenly the bar in front of me fucking explodes. Someone care to explain?"

"You talk walks through the poorest district in the afterlife?" Ichigo asked incredulously.

"You don't know me," Yamamoto eyed his orange-haired subordinate.

"Captain Yamamoto," Byakuya began in a loud, official tone, "this Hollow is the only survivor of a recent battle here in the Yukon District. He was sent here by Aizen and may hold important informa-"

"I LOVE having people repeat to me things that I already know, Kuchiki," the head captain's voice pimp-slapped the noble's pride.

Ichigo's demeanor went from incredulous to just plain angry.

"You were here the whole time and didn't help us?"

"I'm asking why would anyone destroy a bar and all that sake without a second thought!" Yamamoto forged on in verbal thought paying no mind to Ichigo's entirely valid objection. "Positively barbaric. Bars are places of great joy where tired heaps of muscle and sinew go to stumble out of their problems in the company of good friends." He paused to rip a barrel out of some nearby debris, "Well, at least I managed to save some of the happy juice." The old man sliced off the top of the sake barrel and lifted it to his lips with his free hand. "Paah! But enough about my woes. This little Hollow was talking about a resistance in Aizen's Mexico? What's your name? Pancho Villa?"

Yamamoto's every word slipped from his mouth in a wax of sarcasm and intimidation. This was a lion obliging an ant.

"M-my name is Takara. I... I know Hollows in the resistance cell... my friends... they were my friends-"

"Foof, I smell a flashback," the old man wrinkled his nose. "You have three minutes to explain yourself before I get bored and smash your face like an empty sake barrel." He abruptly crushed the now empty sake barrel in his hand.

"I like this guy," Kamina couldn't keep quiet any longer.

"You have good opinions, Shades," Yamamoto commented with a smirk. "Who is this kid, anyway?"

Byakuya looked flustered. It was a look he didn't wear well.

"He's a new soul," Ichigo spoke up and quickly brought HC up to speed on the day's absurd events.

"Bhudda's buffet, kid, impressive work," Yamamoto slapped Kamina on the back, almost snapping his spine. He turned to Takara, "I hope your sap story is half as good as Blue Hair's."

Takara trembled, fists clenched. A maelstrom brewed and swirled in his mind, heavy in his gut, clouding thoughts.

"I don't oblige anyone who reduces my history to mere entertainment," his voice was without tone, his eyes unfocused. "I... wanted to... but you may as well kill me now. No world will get anything from me."

"Clearly you betrayed your comrades in Hueco Mundo," the Hollow's head trained up, eyes wide and shaking at the head captain's sudden accusation. "If you had anything to go back to, you'd be sacrificing life and limb to see it again. Your own home is now a foreign wasteland and you'd rather die than go back there. Am I wrong?"

After a dense pause, Takara spoke softly.

"You can't judge me for what I did. Even you don't know what you're dealing with."

"I do not judge you," Yamamoto replied.

"But I do!" Kamina shot in, unable to keep quiet. "You abandoned your friends and your cause?"

"Is that how you died, Soul Reaper?"

"Soul Reaper?" the words stumbled off of Kamina's tongue. "There's that word again."

"You! Soul Reaper!" Takara flashed into the Gurren Brigadier's face. The other's tensed, ready to pounce. "Is that how you died?"

"Died..." Kamina pondered the word for a moment. A simple math proof took form in his mind. Soul Reaper = Dead Man. Me = Soul Reaper. Therefore, Me = Dead Man. "WHAT?"

A mightly laugh ripped from Yamamoto's throat, "Kid, you're gonna be fun!"

"I'm dead? This is the afterlife?"

"Welcome to the Soul Society," Ichigo said as amiably as possible considering there was a threatening Hollow chest to chest with Kamina.

"How did I die?" and with those words memories blinked in and out like fists striking his mind with images, emotions, pains, fulfillment, regrets.

Kamina raised his right hand up, it drifted in the air and fell down again, slapping Takara's shoulder.

"Yeah," sun gleamed along his orange sunglasses, "I died for a cause."

"Then don't try to tell me I was wrong for what I did. Our entire world is unfocused minds pitted against each other. We kill, we eat and we eventually end up sentient, wondering how we got here... and the story is never glorious. You can't judge me because I NEVER HAD A CAUSE! CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY TO HAVE DIED FOR ONE!"

Takara threw Kamina's hand from his shoulder but it found its way straight back and clenched tight.

"But it's never too late to find one, right?"

"You're an idiot. A blind optimist." His eyes wide, brow twisted, blinking furiously, Takara stared straight into Kamina's pupils, "I'm dead! I'm a Hollow! The hell I knew and those in it aren't even my own anymore. My existence is a purgatory!"

"But you're still holding onto something! That's all it takes!" Kamina's fingers dug into the Hollow's shoulders. "Death is nothing when you've got a goal glowing in front of you!"

A mechanical smile etched itself onto the Hollow's face in spite of his doubt.

"You're insane."

"I'm Kamina, leader of the Great Gurren Brigade and now apparently Soul Reaper even though I still don't know what that means!" He pointed to the sky. "I've got a magic sword and you've got me to help you save you friends in Hueco Mundo!"

"That will not happen," Byakuya's sombre tone decapitated the cheery mood. Six golden planks of light jabbed into the Hollow's torso, froze him in place.

"Oi, wadda ya doing?"

"We're taking him to custody."

Kamina looked at Ichigo, who looked away. He then turned to the old man next to him.

"Sorry, kid," Yamamoto began, "It's the truth. He said he didn't want to help us and he can't stay here so it's probably double death for him."

Takara slumped into his golden prison. His head hung low and would not raise in spite of Kamina's objections and pleas. Yamamoto spoke again. His voice was rough, like he had hastily scraped away any emotion from his words.

"Forget about him. It's your job as a Soul Reaper."

The five remained quiet for a moment, no one looking at anyone else directly. The head captain sighed.

"I guess we'll be needing another one of those damn meetings. Kurosaki, Kamina, you will come too. Thirty minutes."

The old man gripped Takara, listless in Byakuya's spell and vanished with him in tow. Kamina stood there looking at his clenched fists. Ichigo rested his hand on his new ally's tatooed shoulder. Byakuya left without a word, leaving the pair amidst a wisping silence that lasted until Ichigo said that they would have to leave or risk being late for their meeting with the head captain.  



	7. Whitecoats

Me, owning Bleach and/or TTGL. PFFTAAHAHAHA. Moving on.  
Time for some more OOC Yamamoto? You bet your ass it is! As the guy writing the story, I personally enjoy it this way. Expect more.

"Whitecoats, assemble!"

The non-traitorous captains that remained in Soul Society assumed their posts in the head captain's unnecessarily large meeting hall. They were looking rather sombre; backs arched forward a little in a wordless atmosphere. Typical, as there was often little to be cheery about those days, especially because the afterlife's archvillain was poking holes in the universe and sending his baddies out to trash the town and burn the villagers. Regardless, although a meeting like this-and one called so suddenly no less-was normally nothing good, the captains always willingly, begrudgingly presented themselves and swallowed any new problem thrown at them.

"Hollows appeared in the Rukon today." Yamamoto announced. No one made a noise. The old man sniffed loudly and arched his eyebrows. "At least ACT like this is important!"

"Doesn't that happen every day?" Shunsui asked lazily.

"Don't mock me, Pink." Yamamoto paused. "Oh, right, forgot to mention. They were Arrancar. It must be the senility acting up."

"Arrancar?" Hitsugaya remarked. "But they're rarely found even in Hueco Mundo. There's no way they should have gotten here by themselves."

Yamamoto clapped slowly.

"Tenth Division's Captain Obvious, everyone!"

Shunsui sympathetically patted the small, derided captain on the head. Hitsugaya brushed away his flamboyant colleague's hand, spoke slighted words.

"So what does that mean, Head Captain?"

"Glad you asked, Captain Shota," Yamamoto made a signal to the front gates. "We have a special guest to help explain."

Prodded and marched in through the doorway by two generic guards, Takara emerged wrapped in chains that would have appeared more approrpriate on a large shipping vessel. Ichigo and Kamina followed closely behind.

Everyone in the room except Yamamoto and the new arrivals immediately went on guard. Byakuya was rather horrified.

"Captain Commander! Why did you have the Arrancar brought here? He should be in a prison block!"

"Waste of time. Besides, I feel he knows his place here by now."

Takara said nothing. Yamamoto spoke again.

"Are you going to shed some light on the situation we're in for my friends here?" the old warhorse roared from across his great hall.

"Aizen's on to all of you," the Hollow's curt speech was drier than the Sahara. Head bowed, body in chains, mind full of memories, Takara knew that each word that drifted out of his mouth was another step closer to his demise, and in all honesty at that point he wished that he had had the will to speak faster.

"He's found ways into your world," Takara continued, "that's how I'm here now."

There was another pause before Yamamoto blurted out again.

"That it?"

"Pretty much. I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out the implications. Can you kill me now?"

"So eager. Alright, take him to that cliffside eyesore with the firebird."

The generic guardsmen slapped their chests and began prodding their prisoner out of the meeting hall. Takara drifted a long glance towards Kamina before leaving.

"You tried to help," his neck strained back as he passed. "I appreciate it," the heavy wooden gates creaked closed as they crossed the threshold en route to the execution site. "Don't do it again!"

The column of outdoor light thinned out along the Gurren brigadier's conflicted visage until The doors slammed and dust shook from the rafters prompting Yamamoto to vulgarly underscore the inefficency of what he presumed were the cleaning crews.

"Captain Yamamoto, we actually don't have maids in miniskirts tidying the premises," the old man's lieutenant corrected his superior.

"That was our FIRST mistake! Our second was letting an emotionally imbalanced monkey traitor become captain of Division Five! And now look were that's gotten us!"

"Where DOES that leave us, Head Captain Yamamoto?" Hitsugaya spoke up again. "Should we begin some sort of drawn-out, knuckle-dragging traning arc in order to prepare ourselves for the fight ahead?"

"FUCK NO," the old man tapped the bottom of his cane to the wooden floor and the sound crashed through the meeting hall. "Aizen is essentially Batman. Give him enough prep time and he'll kill gods-especially since he now has that troublesome Hogyoku jewel. We can't afford to give him any opportunities. Kurosaki!"

The old man's rapsy voice tugged Ichigo's body towards the mass of captains as if the hair-dye saturated high school student had one a prize on a very suspicous game show. He strolled up to the head captain and stood for a moment while the old man rummaged through his robe. Yamamoto whipped out a baggy, white outfit and threw it at Ichigo. It unfoled into a large white jacket with the number five imprinted on the back in the center of a black diamond.

"What's this?" Ichigo's voice whisped out softly.

"You've hung around us long enough to know damn well what that is, Bleach," Yamamoto's voice was in a rather serious tone. "Don't have me make you look like an idiot."

Again the captains were taken aback by Yamamoto's decisions, and again Byakuya was the one to verbally object.

"Head Captain Yamamoto, aren't there procedures before this happens? This is a serious charge to burden and I'm not sure Kurosaki fully understands what he is accepting-"

"LIKE HELL I'M ACCEPTING!" Ichigo roared. "Don't you realize I'm not actually dead yet? I have a life on a planet called Earth! I thought you would be familiar with it by now! I mean, I have school tomorrow-!"

"True," Yamamoto began, unphased by Ichigo's outburst, "but don't you have a break or something during summer?"

"It's the middle of November, you senile fossil!"

Byakuya cracked the hilt of his sword over Ichigo's head for his disrespect. Hitting the ground, the substitute soul reaper heard the noble begin speaking.

"Head Captain, you seem adamant about this. Even so, I must object. No Soul Reaper-especially a substitute-can simply BECOME a captain due to merits and opinions."

"I dunno, I just killed the guy who was captain before me," Zaraki interjected.

"Not helping," Byakuya muttered, not taking his eyes off of the captain commander. "What I mean to say is that we need to discuss this, submit it for approval and then do what needs to be done officially before anyone could even consider-"

"In my experience, Kuchiki, Bureaucracy is a terrible mistress-a downright syphillis-infested whore who does nothing but tie people down and ruin the spirit of adventure. We need action right now, and for action, we also need men." Yamamoto turned to Ichigo, "Kurosaki, would you accept the position of Captain of Division Five of the Gotei Thirteen?"

The subsitute Soul Reaper got back to his feet and vasiclated there. The silence was a dense forest in which Ichigo quietly examined the jacket in his hands, rubbed his fingers in circles along the cloth as ancient spirits scrutinized him wordlessly from within an arm's reach.

"I don't know the first thing about being a captain, old man."

"We clearly don't either, kid, looking at our track record of keeping would-be problem Soul Reapers in line!"

"You make it sound so easy that I'm actually tempted."

"Kid, we'd be ETERNALLY grateful. And that's the truth too. I mean, we're all dead after all."

"Well," Ichigo shook out the jacket a few times in his hands, "no telling what Aizen could do to MY world if he managed to do whatever he wants to do anyway."

"We'll debrief you later."

In the midst of a content Yamamoto and nine other somewhat unnerved captains, Ichigo kicked up a gust flinging the white captain's jacket over his shoulder and slipped his arms through the sleeves. He took in a deep breath trying to procees what he just did and the consequences that would follow... but then he stamped the latter part out of mind and turned to Yamamoto.

"Does this mean I have to pick a lieutenant now?"

"Well, actually, Squad Five's lieutenant is still on duty."

"Who's that?"

"Momo Hinamori."

Within Ichigo's mind glimmered the briefest, vague recollection of a persona who, in his personal opinion, carried, about as much significance as a fart in a typhoon given the current situation.

"Is there... any way I could choose a different lieutenant?"

"I object!" Hitsugaya shouted.

"Why the hell not?" Yamamoto chortled, completely ignoring the adolescent captain.

"Rukia Kuchiki."

"The bitch is yours!" the old captain thumped his cane against the wooden floor again.

"I OBJECT!" Byakuya and Captain Ukitake both jumped in, hands raised in disapproval.

"Alright, alright, what?" Yamamoto tried to calm everyone down.

Ukitake began with a few coughs.

"Maybe I'm just forgetting things because I'm some sort of mortally ill but I was preeetty sure that Ms. Kuchiki is my current lieutenant... or something... important in my ranks."

"And Captain Kuchiki, what's your objection?"

"I don't necessarily like Kurosaki."

"HEY!"

"But mostly, I believe you're abusing your power, Head Captain," Byakuya's voice was tense, low and focused.

"Because THAT happens SO often!" Yamamoto brushed off the accusation with a roll of the eyes and a borderline overdose of sarcasm. "Very well, the little Kuchiki stays where she is. But I still don't wanna leave the kid with Momo..."

"What about him?" Ichigo motioned towards Kamina who was still shifting about in the background, mostly looking at the door.

"Kamina, was it?" Yamamoto said half to himself, half to grab the former mech pilot's attention. "How would you like to be the second most important person in the entirity of Squad Five?"

The thought of giving the rank of lieutenant to an absolute stranger who had been in Soul Society for all of a few hours had the other captains with their jaws on the floor, but Kamina himself simply remained there looking at the door. His body was shaking like someone had started up a motor inside of him that wouldn't shut off. Tunnel vision boring into the closed meeting hall gate, he wanted the outdoor sunlight on his face again; enough time to say something back to the man whom he'd never see again. Among these strangers, he wasn't even sure what was right and wrong. He didn't know whom to trust, and worst of all, he didn't know whom to protect. His only anchor in this world had shuffled out the door prodded by spears, headed towards execution. What's more is that if everyone there was already dead, what did it even mean to be killed again? Double death? Sounds horrible. An ardent zealot without a cause, his energies cycled violently through his body, richocheted through his extremities with no exit, but even as the silence continued growing, the shirtless, tatooed warrior only remained there entrenched in his own waverings. The half-minute that passed felt like hours. Eventually, Kamina shifted and met gazes with the grizzled captain commander of the afterlife's military force.

"You seem like you need a real hand here, old man."

"That ain't half the story, Shades."

Kamina hadn't stopped trembling.

"If I agree to help, will you do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is, kid."

Kamina stare stabbed into Yamamoto's eye sockets, latched there for a moment and then broke away with a fierce nod. Kamina turned and broke into a run. Gaining speed, he kicked into a mighty leap, both feet outstretched in front of him. His sandals rocked the wooden gates open far enough for him to slide through into the outside world. Back in the sunlight, he scanned the vast city and spotted a jutting cliff face with two pillars and a crossbeam mounted at the edge. In front of this giant "H," an enourmous halberd stood on its end. Without warning, while Kamina was admiring the heaven-piercing qualities of the blade, its base erupted in a blue inferno. The Gurren brigadier sprinted away in a flash.

"Do you have any final words?" a nameless soldier of no significance asked Takara. Lashed to the crossbeam, the condemned shot a hazy gaze along the mass of white robes below him. His voice rasped out a curt reply.

"Hurry up?"

"I'm not even really sure why we ask them that anymore," the soldier remarked. "Prepare the Sokyoku! Commence the execution!"

Everyone on the cliff's edge backed away from the halberd as the priests began channeling their energies. A roaring phoenix reared up from the blade and stared at the Hollow in front of it. The blazing bird let out a screech in preparation to vaporize its prey's soul. Its body craned back and its beak snapped back down violently only to suddenly meet a steel edge. The bird's nose split, belched blue fire and the phoenix recoiled in pain with another ear-splitting cry. Takara looked up and found Kamina standing between him and the spiritual guillotine, a red, skull-adorned cape flapped furiously in the firey wind.

"'Don't do it again?'" Kamina spoke, back still turned to the Hollow. "Who the hell do you think I am?" his orange glasses glinted when he turned to look down over his shoulder, "Definintely not a guy who takes orders well, that's for sure."

The Sokyoku craned back again. Kamina shouted out his sword's name and it whirled back into a long, flawless drill. The blazing phoenix roared and crashed down once more. Kamina answered its battle cry.

"GIGA DRILL BREEEEAAAKAAAHHHH!"

The blue beam that erupted from Kamina's drill blade pierced through the Sokyoku's form. It froze, floated and its edges slowly fluttered away like paper carried by the winds.

"SON OF A BITCH!" a random voice shouted from below. One of the priests looked up at Kamina in the process of freeing Takara. "WHY-HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING? We can't just keep fixing this thing, ya know!"

Kamina propped the Hollow on his shoulder and flashed away from the giant halberd. Moments later, he dropped a very confused and shaken Takara in front of an equally flabbergasted audience with the captains of the Gotei 13.

"My demand," Kamina thrust his finger at the head captain, "is for you to let me help this guy save his friends!"

Pissed... utterly pissed and smashingly dumbfounded might have been an adequate description of the room's mood at that point. A complete stranger, who was also winning in the game of favorites with the head captain, had now just freed a mortal enemy of all of Soul Society and was proposing to spend resources to preserve the lives of his comrades in Hueco Mundo. In that moment, the captains' auras whirling around in that dry, angry air might have struck alight an inferno that would've seared the Sereitei to ash if Yamamoto hadn't burst into an uncontrollable laughing fit. His guffaws ripped through the meeting hall and shook the rafters free of their dust.

"HOT DAMN, KID!" he could bearly speak inbetween laughs. After calming down enough to regain his breath and wipe a tear from his eye, the old captain began again, "Ahaha... hah, kid... kid, you clearly don't know your place here." The air abruptly became heavy. Breathing was like sucking wet cement through a straw. Even the captains showed surprise and strain as Yamamoto nearly crushed the building with his immense spiritual presence. Amid the groaning and splintering pops of wooden columns, the head captain's voice rang serious and solid, "You understand nothing of this world. Neither of you do. Standing there before me, you are in no place to demand anything, especially of such magnitude." Suddenly, as quickly as it came, the spiritual storm breathed out, the air's weight ribboned into pieces and everyone was silent. "But," Yamamoto sighed, "I'll give you a chance to earn that place. I dunno if you were hit on the head as a kid to make you this way, but you've got spunk leaking out your ears."

Yamamoto faced directly his fellow captains.

"From this point on, there will be a Hollow in our ranks. He will serve as a source of information regarding Aizen's Hueco Mundo and be kept constantly under scrutiny," he turned to Takara and flashed up so close to him that the Hollow could smell what he had for lunch yesterday. "Try anything funny and I'll shove my sword so far up your backside, you'll be the little white flag I'll hand to Aizen for him to wave after I'm done kicking his face in." He turned back to his comrades in white coats.

"MEETING ADJOURNED!"


	8. Friends Anywhere

GENTLEMEN. BEHOLD!

Don't own Bleach/TTGL, blah, blah.

The former lair of the man who now wished to destroy Soul Society was exceptionally tidy, no doubt helped by its sparse furnishing. It was like Aizen was broadcasting his fleeting attachment to his home; to this world. Ichigo speculated how no one managed to notice this as he made his way across the Fifth Division captain's office, Kamina in tow. Perhaps everyone in the Gotei 13 cherished Aizen's even-keel demure. Sure, he had only met the man once—and granted that it was in mortal combat—but even then Ichigo couldn't help but notice just how normal the guy appeared. It was as if he was the one rock of familiarity to which people could latch themselves. There were no hair pieces, no shotas, no little pink haired girls, giant breasts, murderous sociopaths, giant foxes, or necessarily veiled pasts, it was just Aizen, just a man who could make someone else comfortable because he was so average.

Then again, that was indeed all an illusion. Regardless of his appearance, his true motives made the man a monster on a narrow, homicidal path towards complete conquest of the afterlife. When he took of his glasses and ascended into Hueco Mundo, he might as well have grown fangs, horns and a tail while rugged scales slowly sheathed his body and a forked tongue dribbled whips of his saliva down to the remaining Soul Reapers below. Once again, maybe that's what he's been all along. Everyone was just too attached to someone ordinary—predictable—to want to entertain such thoughts.

People often take the normal for granted when surrounded by the strange or powerful.

Kamina shook Ichigo from his thoughts, nearly knocking down a row of tomes off of the only bookshelf in the room. The new lieutenant saw the lack of his superior's surprise as a sign of trouble.

"Problem, chief?"

Ichigo meandered towards Aizen's desk and plopped down haphazardly into the seat. He rested his fists on the desk now blanketed with the thinnest veil of dust. It's like the desk wanted Ichigo to know it's recent wedding to untidiness; that Aizen did nothing in this room except keep up impressions and plot. Ichigo felt heavy in that seat, interrupting such a twisted honeymoon. He looked up at Kamina.

"What have I gotten myself into?"

"You mean YOU don't know?" Kamina was a little dumbfounded, "But I was gonna ask you that!"

Ichigo bit his lip and sat in a stifled silence. Kamina sighed and spoke up.

"So neither of us have a clue about what's going on," he stated the obvious. "Doesn't that make this a little more exciting?" Ichigo's head bobbed up slightly. "Sure!" Kamina continued, "we're just a couple of bros getting our bearings in a new world! I remember this one time when my little bro and I decided to break out of our old village! Ya' see, our village was underground. What a bore! Nothing ever changed down there! I was going insane! So we hatched a plan… which didn't work out—BUT THEN A GUNMAN APPEARED and Yoko too! And we rode the little head that Simon found in the ground all the way through the roof and into the bright light above! We flew through the mist over our heads! That cold, dark air stung my chest like needles! It was amazing!"

Kamina looked at Ichigo as if his story was supposed to instantly cheer the man up.

"I have no idea what any of that means," Ichigo replied with a wilted stare, eyes like sheets of glass.

"It means that right at that moment, hundreds of feet above the ground, I had accomplished everything that I had thought of doing in my life. I had gone outside, but then what? Hell if I knew, even when we started falling down like a charging boar down into the dirt below. I mean, I did want to find my dad, but I didn't really know where to start. The point is that we had to find our own way after that. Lucky for us, we had Yoko who led us to her friends. Now, you've got me and I've got you and we've both got long-face out there and his friends in that Weeko Mondo place," Kamina pointed to Takara who was standing listlessly in the courtyard outside. "We're all here in this world with these crazy jerks and weirdoes, but even so we've got to find our own way again; find something to latch onto—something to protect."

Ichigo's let his fists relax and slip off the desk. He jerked up and smiled a little. Kamina grinned back.

"ICHIGO!" the door burst open; the crack of the doorknob slapping the wall shattered the mood like a pro wrestler's kick splits a puppy's spine. Rukia stood at the threshold. Ichigo and Kamina both glowered mildly in her direction and, although the sound could no doubt be heard for a mile, Takara opted to continue contemplating the sky in silence.

"When I heard you became a captain…" the pint-sized lieutenant paused for a moment, "I immediately began working on your commemorative portrait!" Ichigo visibly lurched. "BEHOLD!" Rukia roared and produced a pitiable caricature of Ichigo wearing a captain's uniform posed dramatically upon a cliff-side against which crashed an angry, blue ocean tide.

Kamina wrapped his arm around Ichigo's shoulder, leaning in close. "Looks like you've got an admirer, chief," he quipped with a devilish smirk.

"Gaaaagh! Rukia I thought I told you to stop making those things!" Ichigo slammed on his desk.

"Whoa, whoa!" Kamina interjected, hands raised up pacifically, "I-Ichigo, right? Your name's Ichigo! That's no way to treat a lady!" He slipped in close to the new captain's face again, "Especially not your little girlfriend over there."

"Don't try to turn this into some out-of-place scene from a bad love comedy!" Ichigo retaliated.

"Ichigo," Rukia spoke up calmly, an assertive tone that cut down the duo's quarreling conversation. "Did… that man just fumble with your name? That's the lieutenant's patch he's wearing, right?" Sure enough, Kamina had recently donned a lieutenant's insignia on his left arm tied down by a strip of cloth torn from the tatters of his cape. "Just who is this man?"

"It's a long story," Ichigo said, exasperated.

"Actually it's a pretty short story. We only met yesterday," Kamina replied.

Ichigo seized up and there was a long pause. Rukia gently broke it, her voice like a tiny mallet delicately tapping a wine glass to pieces.

"Uh… sir."

"Kamina!" the Gurren Brigader said proudly.

"Lieutenant Kamina, then," Rukia continued, "would you excuse us?"

Kamina mumbled in consent and, after a few blank stares, eventually understood that he was the one that was supposed to leave. He slipped out of the room and began orienting himself in the Fifth Division headquarters.

"Ichigo," Rukia began again, "Captain Ukitake debriefed me to a point he deemed pertinent but seeing this… I feel uneasy." She shifted her stance. "Are you really prepared for what happens next?"

"Are any of us prepared?" Ichigo muttered back. It took Rukia by surprise—a valid question indeed. The new Fifth Division captain didn't give her time to respond. "This place needs all the help it can get. I wouldn't be surprised if they started reaching out to Hat 'n Clogs in Kurakawa. I'm sure they know about him by now. He's in with them too deep. Same with Yoruichi. We all are."

"But they know their path. They've been traveling down it for so long now," Rukia said. "They are willing to risk their lives for a cause. I'm willing to lay down my life as well. Can you three say the same?"

Ichigo took a look out the window. Kamina had apparently snuck up on Takara out in the courtyard and was attempting conversation. That Hollow had friends whom he wanted to find back in Hueco Mundo. Ichigo knew that if Takara just waltzed into his homeland again, mission failed, he'd be eaten alive—probably quite literally. He had no home, only friends—who may or may not have been dead at the moment—and a meager hope in forging a new life.

Kamina no longer had a home either. He was a collection of memories and emotions searching for new direction. Seeing Kamina grip Takara's shoulder out in the courtyard so strongly, so amiably (despite the Hollow's intensely tepid response), Ichigo thought that his new lieutenant had already found something worth fighting for. He was a man who sought that and seemed a man who would do anything to protect it no matter what the cost.

Ichigo then turned and looked at Rukia. He thought of all the memories he had forged with her and all of the new personas he had met along the way. She was special to him and formed part of his identity. Without her he was just another high school student getting into fights and occasionally seeing ghosts. He was sure that if that fateful impaling never happened that he would have gone on to lead some sort of productive life, but standing where he was now and reminiscing on all of the things that lead up to that point, he would not have had it any other way. Whether or not he had been thrown onto the path upon which he now trod was irrelevant. It was a sort of destiny-related Stockholm syndrome.

"Rukia, our worlds are connected." Ichigo said. "What Aizen does here could end up throwing my own entire world into jeopardy. But even so—even if there was a way to completely cut off that connection—I couldn't bear to know that you would suffer for it."

"Ichigo…"

"We're in this together and I will fight on no matter what to make sure we all find our happiness."

Ichigo turned around once more and Rukia followed his glance. Kamina was pointing dramatically into the sky in several directions and shouting nonsense at Takara in the open mall courtyard. The Hollow then sheepishly pointed his finger towards the heavens in a meek mimic of his companion. Kamina modeled again and Takara gave one more attempted—this one not so half-hearted. Kamina chuckled and slapped him on the back. Takara shot face-first into the ground. His body trembled rhythmically in the dirt. Getting back up, he was laughing softly as well. Maybe it was from sheer surprise or maybe it really was genuine enjoyment, but it seems that Takara was discovering that friends can be made just about anywhere.

"I'm sort of like that guy out there," Ichigo said. "I didn't expect any of this, but now I know that I have friends here, I'll do anything to help them."

"Right," Rukia said. "Then just be careful."

"While fighting _Aizen_?"

"Ah—well, you know what I mean."

A black butterfly hovered between the two Soul Reapers.

"DING DONG!" the normal bell chime the ghostly insects normally emit was replaced by a gruff old man's obnoxious wail. "Man, these things are great! Alright! We need another meeting! All captains and their lieutenants are to report to my digs at 1200 hours! Oh, and Bleach, bring your friend with the bone sombrero! Captain Commander out!"

"Seems we're already making our move," Rukia said.

"He did say not to give Aizen any breaks."

Ichigo called up Takara and Kamina and the four of them casually made their way to the meeting that would decide their fates.


	9. Word in Edgewise

If I owned Bleach or TTGL, I probably wouldn't be in school right now.

Also, to the people who actually look forward to new chapters, I apologize for the hiatus-long pauses between uploads. With that, enjoy.

**NOTE: **I uploaded this for a brief moment before realizing that it needed some heavy overhauling to keep consistency with previous chapters so I took it down again for work. Sorry about any inconvenience, but trust me it's better now.

The last to arrive to the meeting called by Captain Yamamoto, Ichigo, Kamina and Takara met a violent wall of swords that impaled them from across the threshold into the great hall. The other captains' bladed glares sluiced into the trio's chests and foamed there underneath their sternums. Condescension bubbled in the air. This was the welcome a man with a blood clot gives to a leech.

Sandal clap steps clouding the quiet space, Ichigo found himself wondering if this was the first time that these spirits had to reach out so intimately to other worlds for help. No person really takes pride in relying on others, much less a lord of the afterlife—even less, a dozen of them. With each footstep's echo, the orange-haired warrior forged a gurgling tide of bitterness that washed down the walls and seethed across the floor. Stopping in front of a for-once stoic head captain flanked by his soldiers, the trio felt like that one vexingly unsolicited piece during a crucial point in a game of Tetris.

"Arrancar," Yamamoto began rather solemnly, "consider our last interrogation interrupted. You are here to tell us everything you know about the happenings in Hueco Mundo regarding Aizen."

Takara cautiously stepped forward, calculated paces as if walking on glass.

"Aizen is effectively King of Hueco Mundo."

"You wouldn't be here if he wasn't.," Yamamoto grunted. "But more importantly, tell us of your friends over there."

"My friends—," the hollow stalled, choked by a gust of stares. "O-one of my friends told us about three jerks who had murdered a rival group of adjuchas and left their bodies to rot instead of eating them… as some sort of warning he thought. So I suppose you could say that we decided to form a resistance, yes?"

"Why?" Yamamoto's question was unexpected—a punch thrown from nowhere.

"Sand," a sure, quick, curt response—a cross counter.

"Sand?"

"Sand."

"So… there's sand in Hueco Mundo."

"It's everywhere."

"… And it's important?"

"Only as a reminder."

"What do hollows need to remember?" Yamamoto leaned in towards Takara like a sunflower coaxed by yellow rays.

"That we are dwarfed by the grains and even more by whatever put them there. We enter Hueco Mundo delirious; with nothing but hunger. So many of us have died unable to eat enough to survive, and so that sand ruled over us. It made us question if we would see food today or life tomorrow. So for Aizen to come to our world and stomp upon that—wasting food and proclaiming himself god—was unforgivable. He made not a single grain. He made us question nothing. He's no god—nothing but an opportunist and a trickster with a shiny rock."

"The Hogyoku."

"Yes—er, ah—the what, now?"

"The Hogyoku is that shiny rock to which you are probably referring," the head captain said.

Takara's body seized. "Did you have something to do with that thing?"

"I wish I could say we never had our fingers in that pie."

"BASTARD!"

At once arose a scraping chorus of blades running from their scabbards. The captains were ready to move on Takara. Their gaze shot from the angry hollow to their leader—at the moment a calm statue with his hand raised to pacify. His soldiers obeyed with wary glares.

Yamamoto spoke again.

"Have you seen its power?"

Takara trembled.

"It took my friends."

"The friends you said you had?"

"… Some of them."

"What was it like?"

"Losing friends?"

"The Hogyoku."

"The Hogyoku…."

"What did it do?"

Takara paused to remember. "Aizen built a fortress in Hueco Mundo."

"A fortress?" Yamamoto didn't seem to mind the tangent.

"Yes," the arrancar continued. "and it's impressive. It interrupts the desert like the moon in the sky. But before that—before it was there—that glowing rock was sort of like a fortress. It was a break. It fed hollows and made them strong. That's how I lost many companions. They wanted that food."

"It made them stronger?"

"It made them arrancar," Takara words punched their way out of his mouth. "But it poisoned their minds—or maybe their minds were already poisoned, yes? All that they sought was more power. That was their only wish. They were puppets who gave their strings to Aizen."

"Their narrow desires were a trap they set for themselves," Yamamoto's brow tightened, "Aizen only had to spring it." The head captain grumbled incoherently for a moment. "So it granted their wishes?" and the softest chuckle slipped through his lips. "I wonder if that was Urahara's intention. I wonder if anyone knew what they were doing then—even now."

For a moment, the room breathed silence as if it were necessary to life. Amidst it, the solemn, white-picket fence of figures processed what they had just heard. Eventually Yamamoto spoke once more.

"Did you become an arrancar through the use of the Hogyoku?"

"… Yes." The word barely bubbled up Takara's throat but dropped from his mouth like a lead weight.

"Why?"

"I thought I could become stronger."

"And so you did," the head captain commented confidently.

"But it wasn't enough."

"So you simply dropped into your enemy's ranks?"

"I…," Takara's head bobbed down softly, "You're right. I obtained a great power. But—," and his head shot up and eyes locked with his interrogator, "Aizen was too strong. His malice is coy and strength menacing. I had no choice but to lie in wait… but that's what makes me different from the others that came with me. I have other hollows that I know and I respect. I want to protect them and I want to make sure Aizen_ knows_ the world in which he meddles. The proof of my will is that I'm standing here talking to you right now.

Yamamoto's stare dusted the uneasy figure before him. "Indeed it is. Well, you have given us much valuable information, arrancar," the hollow said nothing, "but your will is also our liability." Everyone looked on motionless while the captain commander ruined yet another perfectly good walking stick. Fiery tongues licked out from within the wood's innards and burst through in a violent scream of flames. Grasping his sword, Yamamoto spoke over the conflagration, "For the safety of our world, please die."

The elder captain lunged and a crimson blur cracked across the hall. Kamina's flash step and quick draw barely intercepted Yamamoto's initial strike. Takara stumbled backwards, a trickle of blood running down his cheek, drawn from a graze to the side of the head. The head captain drew back, katana in ready hand.

"What's into you, Shades?" Yamamoto asked the Gurren brigadier, unfazed that an artless newcomer had managed to block his attack.

"I'm stopping you."

"Even if you had the ten-thousand years needed to plan for that, why would you _want_ to stop me? That coward betrayed his friends. On top of that he's a hollow. He deserves everything I'm giving him."

"I don't care what he is! We had a deal, old man!" Kamina growled.

"Refresh my memory."

"I'm going to help this guy save his friends!"

"Exactly, "the head captain said, "_you're_ going to help his friends. I never said _he'd_ be around for that."

"You _ARE_ a bastard!" Kamina attacked the captain commander with a wild swing. Yamamoto parried it so quick that Kamina skidded in circles off to the side. He spun himself aright and rushed again, more like would a bear trying to wield a tree branch than a duelist using a sword. Yamamoto took the second assault head on and locked blades with his attacker.

"Kamina!" Ichigo yelled. "BAN—!" was all he could get out before Soi Fong gripped his outstretched arm. She hip-checked and threw him down to the floor, pinning him securely. The impact rattled Ichigo's sword off out of reach. "What are you doing?" he shouted.

"We're going to learn something today, Ichigo," Soi Fong said calmly.

At once, Ichigo noticed that every single captain was staring at him. Their eyes spilt out a feeling of unwarranted tranquility—inexplicable sureness of the situation. As hard as it was to imagine, Ichigo found himself calmed by it, enough to sit up slowly (released at last by the Special Forces captain) and turn to watch his newest acquaintance battle to the death with a hardened warrior. His view was quickly obscured by a storm of dust and wood splinters flung from a wall-rending explosion. The hall gorged itself with a torrent of fresh air and cleared the floating debris with a mighty heave.

Kamina coughed up a billow of black smoke. Clothing fringes fraying to ash, he stood raggedly in front of Yamamoto. The captain commander loomed over his opponent, propped against his sword-shaped bonfire. With a single swing, the old man could level a redwood forest on a rainy day. Yamamoto took advantage of his position of power.

"Look behind you!" he roared like his blade's inferno. Kamina turned and saw Takara sprawled frightened on the ground. Nerves and muscle melting and misfiring in the lingering heat, the gurren brigadier was paralyzed with exhaustion while the old warrior stomped over to the hollow.

"You're just a spoilt brat who took the easy way out and called it the only option," Yamamoto chided Takara. "Biding your time with a great, new power is no different than changing masters! You gain power to use it!"

Yamamoto raised his burning blade and shot a cone of dragon's breath into the sky. It squirmed, turned, crashed down and with it everything fell silent… still and frozen. It was too loud. Everything had become too loud. No word in edgewise; no chance at redemption. And that's really all he ever wanted. Not with these Soul Reapers. Takara didn't necessarily care about anyone here save maybe that tenaciously flamboyant man nearly burnt to a crisp a moment ago.

He wanted more words to say to his comrades in Hueco Mundo. He wanted to explain himself to them. He wanted to shout at Aizen everything he had said earlier today. He had just passed everything by as if those people were steps in a staircase, and the regret seared through his body, burnt and crumbled; curled ashes of what could have been piled thick in the pit of his gut. If he were to die here, vaporized into nothing, those regrets would be all that remained—black soot of another life marring the floor. Drowning in cowardice, Takara's head drifted. Memories battered his skull. Faces and choices blotted his conscience. Maybe hollows do start out as mindless blobs of selfish hunger, that doesn't mean that they can't grow, say good things, and reminisce… and it seems that even those born of fear and anger can see their lives flash before their eyes.

"Even cowardly hollows want to smash their regrets."

Maybe it was the fact that Hueco Mundo was so white, but Takara didn't fancy the idea of staining anything black by dying. Deserving or not, right or wrong, he would have his word. Fires closing in, Takara emptied his lungs and cut through the torrid tide with a shout.

"UCHI NARASU: CAMPANA!"

At once, the flames leapt about aimlessly like a team of wild horses let unbridled. They splashed across the floor and danced violently in the great hall. The other captains slowly stepped back as Takara got to his feet. His released form's takuhatsukasa sheathed his face in bone; delicate wind chimes dripped from the brim.

Yamamoto immediately noticed that calling flame had become next to impossible. The connection to his Zanpakutou had been muzzled. Meanwhile, the now burning room tantalized the eyes with a scene not a one could hear. Scattered infernos feasted on wood without sound, support beams clattered noiselessly to the ground and a rafter rain of shingles shattered silently upon the floor. The whole structure dribbled into oblivion without a whimper. The only sound was Takara's voice.

"Soul Reaper!" he addressed Yamamoto, "No matter what you may think of me, I will not stop here. I will not let you kill me. If I had no goal before, I've grasped one now! I have things to say to Soul Reapers _and_ to hollows. And if you're going to stop me, you're going to have to try it with your own hands!"

Katana having vanished in his release, Takara rushed the titan before him with clenched fists. War cry ripping, chimes clanging, the hollow's punch was like a meteor roaring at the end of a white lightning bolt. In a flash, his knuckles crumpled into the head captain's chest. The elder reeled, but did not yield. A time-carved, war-scarred face looked into bone-covered eyes. Then, with blood dripping from his ears, Yamamoto gave Takara a grin that conveyed dignified applause.

The arrancar was so taken aback that he didn't have time to react when the old man launched him with a shunpo-boosted flying kick to the ribcage that rocketed him past the rest of the captains and carved a Takara-shaped hole the front gates. Landing awkwardly on his hat, Takara bounced about like a ringing rubber top before skidding to a stop in front of the burning building.

Not a moment later, the rest of the captains appeared around him in wait. Takara rose steadily and on guard. He shifted around, trying to keep each of them in his line of sight until he got to Ichigo who had already approached right up to the hollow. Takara staggered back a bit but froze when the orange-haired Soul Reaper extended his hand with a soft look on his face. Ichigo said something; mouthed a single word deliberately.

"Please."

Slowly the other captains there looked each other over, nodded and drew their blades… then stuffed them, tip-down into the dirt. It was a plea and a sign of recognition. The bony takuhatuskasa on Takara's head started crumbling to dust taken away in the wind. With soft chimes as company, the wind suddenly wisped in everyone's ears, birds squawked and the great hall's roof gave with a thunderous collapse. Ichigo's hand remained where it had been and Takara slowly grasped it.

"I'm sorr—,"

"It's alright," Ichigo said. "I think these guys went a little too far with their plan."

"Plan?"

A section of roof rose loudly from the smoldering debris held aloft by a single hand. It was Yamamoto. He whipped aside the crumbling wood and emerged with Kamina slung over his shoulder.

"Oi! Lemme down, geezer! I can walk!" the crimson-caped Soul Reaper protested weakly.

"Don't try to act big, I know you can't move," the old man shot back.

"What is going on?" Takara demanded.

Yamamoto approached the hollow and dropped his load nearby with a thud that complained afterwards. "You're right, this sort of got out of hand."

"Captain Yamamoto makes plans like a bad story writer," Shunsui commented. "He's got an ending but forgets how to treat his characters along the way."

"Enough out of you, Pink. I told you we'd get what we wanted." Feeling the hollow in front of him about to explode from angry anticipation, the head captain quickly explained himself. "We needed a couple of things." He looked at Takara, "First, we needed to see proof that you would stand up to Aizen." The hollow cringed, thinking about the choices that had led him to where he stood. "And," Yamamoto turned to Kamina who was lying with his back to the crowd mostly because his body hated him too much then to move him anywhere else, "we also needed to see this guy defend his own choices. You're all a janky mess of a team right now. I want to know that you can succeed together."

Takara reflected quietly for a moment. Yamamoto continued.

"Now that doesn't mean you both are anything great," the elder tuned to Ichigo. "Let me make that three. But you've learned a lot today. And I'm glad it only cost us my headquarters!" The hall cursed him with a lurid, wood-splitting crack.

"Only?" was the general consensus.

"Kyoraku's right. I make bad plans."

Kamina slowly turned himself around, "You're just lucky I didn't get serious, old man."

"Toot your horn, kid." Yamamoto chortled before turning to his other captains who had finished re-sheathing their swords in the wake of the conversation. "Alright, everyone, I appreciate you all playing along with me through that event back there, but now I've got a lot of long-distance butterflies to make. We'll make our move in a few days when we're ready, but until then take some leave."

The captains casually dismissed themselves in their own way leaving Ichigo, Kamina and Takara alone with a distracted Yamamoto kicking at the nearby building debris. Ichigo walked over and offered Kamina a hand up. The Gurren brigadier accepted it begrudgingly.

"You didn't do anything," Kamina quipped. "What the hell could you've had learned?" The hollow turned to the orange-haired captain, his interest also piqued.

"I learned that I can trust you two to find your own way with your problems."

Kamina was a little taken aback with this answer. Some distance away, Yamamoto grinned and left his post stirring debris. Ichigo spoke again.

"Hey, if you forgive me, I'll treat you to…" his face contorted in thought, "to… well, to something you've never had before."

Kamina laughed. "You don't have to give a man something new to make him happy. Just give me a rack of mole pig and I'll be fine!"

"I don't know what that is," Ichigo chuckled. "Takara, are you—?"

The hollow was still looking at what remained of the head captain's meeting hall. The smolders quivered like a tense gladiator before a fight. What remained of the walls there belched soot and finally collapsed exhausted; strew itself across its own foundation. Ichigo and Kamina approached the hollow softly.

"I'm surrounded by monsters," Takara said.

The Soul Reapers stopped and waivered. Like a giant wanting to pet a kitten, Ichigo shuffled closer and gently glided a hand onto Takara's shoulder.

"We fight monsters all the time," he gestured to Kamina who floated up next to the pair.

"Right! You wouldn't believe the kind of things I had to deal with when I was alive!" The crimson caped lieutenant pointed at himself and made extravagant swings through the air with his free hand. "Thinking back on all the Gunmen and Beast Men trying to kill us every day, I'm surprised I didn't die earlier!" Kamina cringed after speaking that sentence, still not quite acclimated to the taste of "I'm dead" slithering across his tongue.

"I am human," Ichigo said. "You're a hollow. And he's…" Kamina had not quite stopped muttering about his adventures, "Well, he's himself, and weirdoes like us gotta stick together in this world of monsters."

The trio's stomachs growled in symphony. Kamina had a question.

"Hey, so how do you eat with that hole in your gut?"

The question felt like one that should've been asked earlier. How does a hollow find a bite to eat in Soul Society? … Well, without being decapitated.

**NOTE**: I sort of retcon'ed Takara's abilities because I felt they were too overpowered. This'll be more relevant in later chapters.


	10. Busy Mouths

Still don't own Bleach or TTGL. Happy Easter.

Also, thanks to everyone who has given me reviews over the years. I do appreciate it.

A growling stomach can be many things: a social faux pas, a stubborn front's fissure, a reason to smile, blush or point and laugh. They are mostly happy or silly happenings. Then again, most people usually only recognize other people's gurgling hunger pangs. Hearing a foreign being's bodily functions typically becomes an exercise in panic restraint. Even so, Ichigo dismayed in how much (for people who had come to grips with the fact that they were already dead) something remotely unfamiliar could still scare so many of the Soul Reapers in the Fifth Division. Strolling through the grounds towards the captain's office, the audibly hungry Takara was a pasty Moses parting a skittish sea of black-cloaked reeds.

"I've never heard such a powerful hunger!" Kamina chortled. "What'dya have a hole in your stomach?"

Takara wordlessly parted the lapels of his jacket. Seeing the street behind them framed through the hollow's chest, Kamina briefly reeled in horror.

"EYEAA-ah-hahaha…!" He coughed; nervous sweat licked his brow. "Neat."

"Let's just get inside," Ichigo said as he quickened his pace through the wary crowd clearing from their path.

A sliding door slammed. A few heavy sighs heaved into the air. Another gut growl shredded through them. The two Soul Reapers in the room turned to their unusual friend.

"Don't tell me you eat souls," Ichigo said; the image of Rukia's poor scrawlings on the basics of Hollow behavior briefly haunted his brain.

"You eat souls?" Kamina yelled in shock.

"I said he doesn't!" the captain shouted.

"You imply it!" his lieutenant shot back.

"I—!" Takara's voice rose and slashed the bickering to silence, "…'m not sure."

The room went quieter than a Barmitzvah after a bad Hitler joke. What kind of hunger grips one that doesn't actually know what they eat to survive? The arrancar spoke up again.

"It's a little scary. I haven't had hunger for a long time. I remember a time when I ate souls; other hollows… but I've forgotten the taste. I don't know what I need to eat."

There was a pause.

"Any guesses?" Kamina cut in.

"W-we have oyaku donburi, zosui, kinpira gobo, takoyaki, beef curry,onigiri, melon pan and several selections of sushi," a sturdy looking girl topped with a chef hat announced with wide, if not somewhat shaky, sweeps of her hands. To solve the new problem of "What do you feed an arrancar?" several of the Gotei 13's lieutenants and captains had been conscripted into listing off their favorite types of food followed by a debate among the top ten ranking soldiers in Fifth Division (aside from Ichigo and Kamina) as to who would actually bring the spread to its final destination. The Soul Reaper before the trio had been coaxed into its delivery with the promise of her very own culinary headwear—a bribe that she was starting to regret having accepted. She removed her hat and ran a hand through her short, brown hair in an attempt to regain composure in the audience of a captain, lieutenant and a chillingly well-behaved hollow, "T-they ordered me to make food deliveries to this place so if you need anything else, m-my name's Kin—eight seat of Division Five."

Ichigo struck Kamina before he ruined the buffet with excessive drooling, "So… anything here you might like?" he asked Takara.

The arrancar's eyes gorged themselves with colors, lines and shapes while his nose feasted on the whirling aromas of white steam blossoms. He prodded a few meals with his fingers, then utensils. Then after a moment of tense silence, he began sampling.

"HOT! WHAT IS THIS? BLEEEUHH… CAN'T CHEW. AAGH! MY TONGUE! LIKE SWORDS IN MY MOUTH! FUAAAH!"

Honestly, it was the liveliest that anyone in the room had seen him since… well, ever. Yet, in the end, Takara had rejected everything at the table—most directly from his mouth in the most violent manner possible.

Kin moaned, "I need a break." To ease the growing anxiety in the room over Takara's still unsolved hunger pangs, she put to her lips a ceramic jug that she had brought along with her.

"What is that?" the hollow pointed, still concerned with sating his unknown appetite.

Needless to say, the direct question from an elite enemy warrior took her aback. She seized up for a moment before muttering her answer.

"T-they told me it was sake."

Ichigo sputtered in near laughter.

"They _told_ you? You ever drink that before?" he asked, unwilling to let on that he had never actually drank any either.

"A-a little!" Kin put up a proud façade. The truth was that Shusui had forced it on her before she left, probably as some sort of joke—or maybe because it really was one of his favorite "foods."

"Sneak a bit for yourself if you get the jitters," she remembered the flamboyant captain's grin and the somehow inappropriate look in his eye. Then there was some sort of invitation to an all-female drinking party before his lieutenant struck him in the temple and dragged him away.

Brushing thoughts aside, Kin downed a nip of the pale liquid. "Hey, that's actually not bad."

"May I have some?" Takara petitioned in monotone, holding out an inappropriately large cup.

Everyone hesitated for a moment. A drunk hollow. A drunk _arrancar_. What could happen? _Could_ that happen? Ichigo and Kin were so occupied drowning in the monstrous tide of possibilities that they didn't see Kamina snatch the jug from the female Soul Reaper's hands and promptly top off the entirety of Takara's glass.

"Here ya go, buddy."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

The softest of sips smashed the action in the room. Everyone froze—Ichigo and Kin out of horror and Kamina more from child-like anticipation, still not quite fully aware of what sake was. Within ten seconds, Aizen's rogue soldier had gulped the entire cup in one go.

A long sigh popped out of Takara's mouth.

"More, "he held out the flagon in which he was just served his new favorite drink.

There was another pause. Ichigo broke this one.

"Well, if an arrancar likes it, it can't be that bad," he mused

"You've never had any either!" Kin instantly accused.

The captain slyly repossessed the container of sake from his subordinate—much to Kamina's chagrin—and poured himself a customarily smaller cup before giving the hollow his own refill. Unaware of the laws of the tactfully discreet Ichigo's world, no one in the room objected to a curious minor consuming alcohol.

"Hey! I was supposed to have it next!" the Gurren brigadier complained, grasping for the jug.

Soon everyone had their own full glass of sake. Then they were gone. Then there were more cups. And even more cups until the jug was exhausted and their faces red like roses. Well, everyone except Takara whose demeanor seemed rather unchanged despite having drank perhaps the most of anyone in the room. Best of all, his growling stomach had seemed to stop.

"Gehahah!" Kin laughed—the one most taken in by the sake's rude and beguiling gestures, "Ya know, this job ain't too bad after all!"

"What job?" Kamina hiccupped.

"Well, I mean, if I get to just come over here and drink sake with this guy every day, that's not a bad gig, right?" the Soul Reaper gestured to the hollow in the room.

"Me?" Takara asked.

"Right! I mean, I never even heard of arrancar before, but you seem pretty alright to me! I dunno what everyone else in the division was bugging about!"

Mouth softly parted; eyes wide like a child seeing something large and novel, Takara almost looked like he was smiling. Ichigo and Kamina said nothing to preserve the mood—or more likely they failed to feel out any words in their foggy minds to begin with. At that stumbling pace the day reached its end. The next afternoon went much the same way—with all parties aside from Takara taking it easier on the sake. The eighth seat Soul Reaper grew closer to her captain, lieutenant and their strange guest, and eventually, once more a day's events brought smiles to faces in the barracks despite their knowledge of a powerful hollow stashed within their ranks. It had not quite been a week.

"So here he is!" Kin entered the room more like would a stray bouncing ball than a person. Over the past few days she had come to very much look forward to her obligatory afternoon sake breaks. Today she had dragged along with her a guest: another female Soul Reaper.

"So you're the one who helped my little Kin out of her shell?" She was a rugged woman who claimed to be in the same class as Kin during their academy days—a soul sister who behaved like a surrogate mother.

"Oko, knock it off! Don't embarrass me!"

"You don't get to order the third seat around, kid!"Oko parried jovially. Yet not a blink later, she blazed up into Takara's face, staring him down with malice, "But kidding aside, I'll have you know that I still trust you about as far as I can throw you" which, given her stature, could arguably be pretty far, "and if you try anything that could hurt Kin, I won't hesitate to kill you."

The hollow sucked his thin lips back into his mouth below his surprised eyes.

"Now let's drink us some sake!" and with that Oko seemed back to her normal, jolly self.

Ichigo and Kamina were used to supervising Takara's alcoholic tea parties by now, but if new guests kept showing up, problems could arise. Wait. Would there be problems? Seeing as no one had had their soul sucked or nothing had been violently destroyed with ceros or the like, the rest of the barracks had calmed down substantially over the past five days. The thought never reached Kamina who was either too busy trying to get his sword to talk again, chatting with Takara or challenging random Soul Reapers to duels of strength and manliness.

However, the fact haunted Ichigo: almost no one aside from the captains and maybe a few lieutenants were aware of an arrancar's true power. What would happen if an alien's façade became everyone's truth? Takara was a chicken's egg holding a primed atomic bomb inside his shell. Yet seeing Takara remotely content after having been put through so much with his history and Yamamoto's trial, Ichigo was determined to make sure the egg never cracked.

"Yeah! We should totally get everyone together!" the Fifth Division captain was so lost in thought that he had missed the entire conversation in front of him. Kamina had been getting chummy with Oko who had hatched the idea of a full barracks sake party to get everyone used to having a hollow in their ranks. Ichigo nearly cracked and fell to pieces on the spot. WHAT? It'd be much easier just to keep the guy holed up and away from as many people as possible! He's only here to help us find and bring Aizen in any way! He's not here to make friends!

"Yeah! We'll have a party that'll make even that pervert captain with the pink kimono jealous!" Oko roared.

"So he invited you to one of those too?" Kin asked flatly.

The rugged third seat sighed to confirm suspicions.

Takara said nothing but it was clear that he had no real objections.

Ichigo agreed to the proposal—if nothing just to save face for the hollow and prevent himself from looking like a paranoid ass. Yet anxiety lingered in his every step towards assembling his soldiers in front of an arrancar.

Once the word got out, light itself would have been impressed by the speed at which roughly the entire barracks agreed to a sake party on their day off from duty. It was the next day and everyone had gathered in a sweeping courtyard filled with low tables, cups and jugs of pallid harmony. Ichigo and Kamina sat at their own table atop an elevated stage with Takara, Kin and Oko. The captain slowly rose to make a speech and opened his mouth.

"Alright, you Soul Reapers!"Kamina's voice flooded the space and Ichigo recoiled in surprise. "Listen up! This here is my bro, Takara! He's an a-a…arrn… car I guess, but that doesn't make him any different than you and me!"

Ichigo was about to punch the impromptu orator out when he noticed how intently the crowds listened to his outspoken lieutenant.

"And he doesn't eat people! Check this out!" Then Kamina rammed the side of his arm into a flustered Takara's mouth. "EAT ME! EAT ME~!"

Ichigo clobbered Kamina over the head with the blunt side of his sword and tried to subdue the Gurren brigadier with grappling. There were some horrified looks and understandable amount of concerned crowd murmuring before Kamina wrestled his way back into a hunched-over position of power with Ichigo's arm flexed upwards, aiming to pull off a one-handed choke hold on his subordinate.

"Look, what I'm saying is that this guy drinks just like we do." Kamina tilted his head towards Takara. "A couple people told me that you may not trust this guy because of where he came from, but I know he's here to help… so do you guys think we could at least share a drink with him?"

There was a long silence broken only by the soft clattering of ceramic vessels kissing. Kin poured Takara a glass of sake, then filled her own cup and stood up. She held her arm straight out towards the hollow, almost in hopes that he would join her. Nearby, Oko served herself and stood up too. Not long after, a black cloak off in the crowd got to its feet with a full cup extended towards the captain's table. Then another. A dark tide of Soul Reapers rose with glasses high, filled with sake that glistened in the sunlight.

"Kanpai!" Kin cheered.

"KANPAI!" the crowd roared merrily and downed the first gulps of the first ever Fifth Division Barracks-wide Drinking Party.

It was like a ridiculous plot device in a story. Ichigo could never have imagined it being so easy. Everyone just standing up and cheering? What was it? Someone bumped his arm.

"Here, man," Kamina offered his captain a shimmering glass. "Join in!"

Drinking? He looked at Takara enjoying his own glass of sake while Oko paid Kin for a bet they made on how much the hollow could drink without going under. Everyone seemed happy. The rest of the Soul Reapers were all jostling about and shooting the breeze; arms and smiles stretched across tables, taking care not to tip anything over.

"You'd think there'd be a complaint," Ichigo said to himself and took the glass offered him.

"Why?" Kamina asked. "We're alive and our mouths are busy. What else do we need?"

As the sake ran dry, the stumbling masses of Soul Reaper shuffled back to their rooms to sleep off a night of merriment. The following day, everything returned to normal with the exceptions of a forest of headaches that had sprung up overnight and an extra pair of footsteps about the grounds: those of a surprised Takara being led by Kin to meet the rest of the soldiers on her newest hollow-sitting assignment. People with spare time complimented his drinking prowess or even asked him a few questions about Hueco Mundo. Even without really having done too much, with their leaders' word, faith, a sake party and the lack of wanton destruction, the soldiers under Ichigo and Kamina's command had come to trust Takara (at least to the point where they felt that he wouldn't go on an unprovoked rampage) and sort of wore it as a badge of honor knowing that they lived among a hollow without (excessive) fear.

So, strange as it was, Takara was making friends as Kin tugged him along by the hand through Division Five.

Outside the barracks at the grounds entrance, an inconsequential Soul Reaper heard an unnatural warbling coming from behind one of the right angle turns that ran among Division Five and through the rest of the Seireitei. Eventually, a gangly looking pale man dressed in a white robe rambled out from behind the wall with an off-kilter step. His garish red hair wrestled with the wind. An ornately decorated skull hung over half of his face. The Soul Reaper lit up.

"Hey, you look like that other fellow at the drinking party!" he said. "Are you another friend of the captains?"

"I am," his voice was strong but distant, like a man possessed—like someone in a remote location was typing in commands for him to speak, "Arrancar… úmero once: Libre…" his voice trailed off.

A flash of eyes and the Soul Reaper's head rolled across the ground accompanied by shuffling steps that bled off into the division's grounds.


	11. A Different Power

Tak, tak, tak.

"My my, you're so pale! Is it make-up? One of my girlfriends likes to layer it on like that."

Tak, tak, tak.

"Man, I can't believe you're up around and walking straight! Yesterday you drank like there was a barrel to fill in your stomach!"

Ta-tacka-tacka-tack.

"Ya know, I've always wondered what our uniforms might look like if we had a little more white in them. Then again, you might look good in some black…."

Tacka-tacka-tacka-tack!

"So, are you actually any good with that blade at your hip? I mean, we're all Soul Reapers here, but I know too many sods around here inept at swordplay. That new lieutenant's a barrel of fun though!"

… Tak, tak, tacka.

"Shakkaho… shakkaho… the reddest of hado always blossom beautifully when they explode."

Ski-i-ishhhhh-tacka-tacka-tacka!

Takara's sandals skidded unevenly down a nearby hallway at the behest of a flustered Kin whose steps clapped the ground briskly and away from a gloomy-looking Soul Reaper stationed in a relatively fire-retardant section of the barracks.

"We usually leave him alone," Kin chuckled nervously.

"He seemed nice," Takara commented. It had been his response to most everyone that day.  
At what the Fifth Division's eighth seat deemed a "secure distance," from the probable pyromaniac they had just encountered, she relinquished her charge's sleeve and heaved out a sigh. The impromptu tour through the barracks had been turning into a rather troublesome wish fulfilled on a whim.

"KI-IN!" earlier that morning in the Squad Five captain's office, Kamina's eager voice ripped through the barracks like several gallons of water trying to fit into a shot glass.

"NNAAH, YES?" the eighth-seat Soul Reaper replied while gripping her head. Like much of Squad Five at that hour, she was nursing a hangover. Being in the same room as a human megaphone didn't help.

"Ichigo and I both thought that now since everybody knows Takara, you should take him on a little tour through the place!"

"Don't go making things up on your own!" Ichigo cut in from behind his desk.

"Ya know, show him around!" the Gurren Brigadier ignored his captain's protest.

"Listen to your superiors!"

"Aw, c'mon. You do agree that some fresh air would be nice, right?"

"We didn't agree on anything!"

"You're such a spoil-sport, chief."

"Look," Ichigo settled down, "one little drinking party isn't going to warm everybody up to an arrancar being among our ranks. Maybe it went alright yesterday, but I'm still worried. It was good for morale but I think if we push this any further we'll just set everyone off. Anyway, since we're about to make our move on Aizen within the next day or so, it's probably best if we all just sit and lay low until we head out."

The room fell silent. In a way, he was right. The arrancar arrangement had made things were tense in not just Squad Five, but the entire Seireitei, and it wasn't a sure thing that a drinking party would really soothe that tension at all. More importantly, Takara was mainly a tool of infiltration. Forcing his presence on the rest of the Soul Reapers would be like asking conventional soldiers to make friends with a suspicious-looking bomb that the army casually stole from its enemy. There honestly was no reason for Takara to be seen anywhere. He should have remained locked up; sequestered until his time for usefulness had arrived.

"But—what if I want a walk?"

All eyes were on the arrancar.

"Ah—I mean, could I still go out?"

Ichigo was stunned, Kamina looked like he was about to break his jaw smiling and Kin seemed on a teeter-totter of uncertainty that was slowly dipping towards giddy optimism. It would seem that the flamboyant lieutenant's impromptu suggestion had sparked something in Takara. Whether or not he had meant to, Kamina had inspired curiosity in their guest, and with just a day left before began perhaps the greatest conflict any of them would ever see, it seemed that to deny Takara that chance to wander in the place that had effectively become his surrogate home for the past week would be a torture few would wish on others.

With a sigh, Ichigo eventually yielded to the collective thoughts in the room.

"Well, I guess if you really want to head out, we couldn't stop you without creating quite a commotion." Kin almost glared at her captain—not exactly expecting that response. "So," Ichigo smiled, "it seems my hands are tied." He rose from his seat and walked over to the arrancar. He then looked to Kin. "Kin, I'd like you to accompany him and keep him out of trouble."

"You're letting us go?" she asked just to make sure.

"It's a mission. Take our guest around the barracks to see where exactly he's been living for the past week."

Her face lit up with enthusiasm. "Yes, captain!"

As the two strolled out of the office, Ichigo caught Takara as Kin rounded the door's threshold. It was a quick but direct whisper, "Mention your powers to no one."

Yet despite the somewhat ominous end to the conversation that led to the friendly tour around Fifth Squad's campus, no real reason to worry had ever presented itself. And that was the funny thing: it was supposed to be a tour. Neither Takara nor Kin really expected to find anyone, rather simply see the sights. Yet even with such a sunny, simple plan, a verbal hurricane of curious Soul Reapers had followed them wherever they went, and by noon they had found themselves waterlogged with questions and comments for which they often had no response. Dripping with exhaustion, the pair scurried through several more crowds dispensing disquieting games of "20 Questions," eventually finding respite at the threshold of a wide—and pleasantly vacant—hallway that skirted the main courtyard where last night most everyone had drank themselves silly.

Wide-mouth windows yawned in sunlight that skipped warm, yellow islands across the stretching floor. Kin moved first, slowly and gently; more like a detective scanning for clues than someone simply crossing a room. Takara followed in silence and the two sank their heels in the time it took to wander towards the next corridor. Drunk with hush, Kin softly dribbled out two words:

"It's nice."

"Eh?"

"The quiet."

Mouth parted; unsure how to respond, Takara simply remained silent.

"You're supposed to say something."

"R-really?"

"Right. Otherwise I'll get lost."

"Lost?" Takara halted.

"People get lost in quiet," Kin said, and swayed further down the hall, letting the window frames weave sun and shadow across her body. "It's much nicer when someone else is with you. That way you can get back to everything else."

Takara froze at that comment. His power made him part of that kind of a world: this hallway without Kin—or maybe worse, this hallway with her alone. Her burly sister-figure had mentioned before that the events of the past few days had helped this Soul Reaper out of her shell. Takara did not know what that exactly entailed, but he had a sinking feeling that if he ever drowned everyone's voices again, his new friends might fear or even hate him—she might hate him.

Like casting someone into rapids without a life-jacket while he walked along the shore, it was a cruel and unfair power. More importantly, it interfered directly with Soul Reapers being able to use the released forms of their Zanpakutou. If he was going to use their help to save his allies still biding their time in Hueco Mundo, he would need them at full power.

Ichigo's command echoed in his head. What would he do then? As all arrancar, his soul shaped that power—his struggles as a ghost that left the human world in anger and sorrow were the hammer and chisel that gave it form. Here, though, his identity was nothing but ruin for everyone around him. If he intended to help the Soul Reapers free Hueco Mundo, he would need new power.

"Could I find new power?" he thought.

Takara's hand slipped to the hilt of his sword and gripped the ornate cloth wrapped tightly about the handle. It clicked about in the scabbard to the rough tapping of his fingers. For his own weapon, it felt ludicrously foreign, and he suddenly felt a violent urge to rip it from its sheath and blur the air around him with whatever strikes he could muster. Firing-squads of muscle shudders popped through his arm, wrist and down his fingers. With a rigid twitch, metal blinked open from his beside his hip, but froze suddenly—interrupted by the deftest coincidence. The arrancar, in the process of drawing his blade, stalled and cocked his head towards the hand that the female Soul Reaper had just dropped onto his shoulder.

"Takara…," Kin managed quietly with her eyes wide and bouncing between her company's face and the glistening island of metal whispering threats from between hilt and scabbard lips.

"K-Kin—I—"

"Are you having an inner monologue?"

"I—w-what?" The question dazed most muscles in his face and upper body, and conferred on his face an attractive slack-jaw stare. Arm and shoulders limp with surprise, his sword wilted back into its scabbard.

"Well," Kin began again, "I figured being a hollow in Soul Society, you'd have a lot of those. I mean, if I were in—well, wherever you live—I'd have a lot to process. Plus you're so quiet all the time. You _are _thinking, right? Maybe your head's just empty?"

Takara sputtered. It was a chuckle of raw surprise. Was he really that easy to read? He had done so much thinking lately over the past few days that he had fancied himself a deep character delivering a never-ending soliloquy on stage. Yet with a simple observation, this girl had shattered the pretention of his thoughts like a child splashing in a shallow puddle. He was so wrapped up in his new environment, that he had become exactly that: a painting of his new world—something to which this Soul Reaper could walk up and see every color and stroke. His chuckling flared into full-on laughter. Never actually seeing him so emotive before, Kin took a few concerned steps backward.

"T-takara, are you OK?"

The arrancar's laughter died down. "You help me realize who I am here," he said with a smile. "In this place, I was trying to be who I was."

"Takara," Kin began with hesitation, "is this about your powers?"

The arrancar's eyes shot open, "H-how did you—?"

"I've got good ears," she smiled. "And I know when to linger behind doorways. But, really, did I hear that right? Captain Kurosaki told you not to tell anybody about your powers?"

Already caught, the arrancar felt nothing except to nod in defeat.

"That's awesome!"

This completely startled the hollow. Kin continued.

"I mean, scary things are always kept locked up, right? That must mean you're scary powerful. I'm glad you're on our side, Takara!"

He didn't know how to feel about this.

"Hey," she grabbed Takara's shoulder once more, "Oko always told me that power isn't something that someone should hide away." His brow furrowed at this comment, knowing exactly the consequences of releasing his true identity. "I'm sure I could understand. I mean, a lot of our higher-ups have their own sword releases and identities. I've got no real idea, but I figured yours might be like that. So, if you wanted to show anyone—"

"NO," he shook away softly. "I… I need a different power." Once more, the arrancar's fingers rapt the hilt of his blade and bounced atop the fabric. "I need power like you."

"P-power like me?"

"Do you have the sword release?"

"Me? Well, no—"

"But you are still strong."

"W-well, haha, I-I wouldn't say that, now," she blushed a little, trying to dismiss the comment's effects on her with waves of her hand.

Takara gripped her shoulders. Kin gave a peep and her body twitched stiffly.

"You don't have the sword release," he began, "but you stood with me. You are strong."

Stuck there, Kin felt inclined to think thoughts that had never really crossed her mind before. Being so close to the captain and lieutenant, she simply figured that they would be there to protect her if something went wrong while she "took care" of their guest. She had never really factored her own strength as any part of the goofy equation in which she had suddenly found herself. Maybe it wasn't much, but this power she had was something that interested this monstrous warrior that held her in place at that very moment. The lion had a thorn in its paw and only the mouse could remove it.

After a moment, Takara released her and took a step back. He gestured to his katana.

"Kin, do you think you could help me to better use this?"

She chuckled a little at the suggestion. "I know that you're powerful. So powerful that our own captain would ask you to hide your power away, but you ask me for sword-fighting lessons?"

Takara seemed a little hurt at the way she had responded.

"Hey, hey," Kin quickly grew cheery, "don't look at me that way. It was a joke… well, kind of. I'll find us some friends to practice right now, alright? Besides, from what Captain Kurosaki said earlier, it doesn't seem like we've got much time to drill."

The arrancar lit up somewhat at the suggestion and quickly followed his guide as she wound through the barracks towards a new opportunity. Elsewhere, Ichigo was getting migraines from trying to fit too many problems into his mind at once.

"I'm gonna get an ulcer if this keeps up," he muttered under his breath as he signed some papers in front of him. Kamina's idea for a whole-barracks sake party wasn't just a little fling. Apparently, and of course unbenounced to the carefree lieutenant, such things had to be taken into proper account; mostly with tedious paperwork—paperwork that a begrudging Ichigo had mostly been left to deal with.

"I guess that even with a war on our hands, they expect this place to keep going on like usual, huh?" he murmured once more. Finishing up a stack of documents, he handed them off to his side to where his second-in-command would usually putter about. "Hey, Kamina, get these to the processing office at Division 1, alright?"

No hand was there to take the parcel. Ichigo twitched with rage.

"Look, man, ya barely do anything here to begin with so how about giving me a break with this one?!"

The captain quickly turned and found his lieutenant staring intently out the window.

"Now what are you doing?!"

"There's a guy," Kamina began somewhat pensively, "just standing on the roof over there."

"Yeah, what about it? People do that all the time here. I think it's some sort of trend."

"Yeah, but he's wearing all white."

Ichigo swallowed what was about to be another angry quip.

"And he doesn't look like any of those other guys we met those days ago."

Ichigo pushed Kamina aside and took a look out the window. It was only a glimpse. A blink, and the gaunt figure vanished; its hair that swilled wind in knotty, lava-red billows, the last thing to leave sight.

"That wasn't a captain," Ichigo started to run out the door. "Kamina, track down that guy and stall him when you find him. Create a commotion if you have to."

Grinning at the word "commotion," the Gurren Brigadier nodded fiercely and unceremoniously jumped out the window. Ichigo sighed but gave it no further thought, worried more about what might happen if Takara was forced into a fight. He bolted as fast as he could down every hall in search of Squad Five's arrancar and his caretaker.

"Damn it, I should've learned how to do that butterfly thing!" Ichigo cursed himself.

_I'm actually working on the subsequent chapter as we speak so you can actually expect another update somewhat soon (give me a few days, there's a crazy-ass battle sequence I'm trudging through). Other than that, sorry I'm dragging out "mysterious new guy on the grounds" for so long. I like to think that I've got better pacing than Kubo but this is proving that wrong._


End file.
